The New Zealand foreign minister, Murray McCully, says cutting aid to one of the Pacific's largest aid organisations was the right thing to do in order to deal with other challenges in the region.
The NGO, the Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific International, has attacked Mr McCully as paternalistic and Stalinist in his approach to aid cuts to NGOs working in the Pacific.
It says two million dollars has been cut from his group's aid programmes since Mr McCully came to power and he talks of the minister wielding a machete over other NGOs.
But Mr McCully says the programme the NGO is complaining about was a piecemeal and adhoc.
"I was concerned to ensure that we did something more significant, in the way of a framework to deal with tsunami readiness within the region, and so we will be announcing quite soon a much larger more comprehensive programme which is regionally integrated, which is going to do a much better job. It will cost significantly more but as a consequence we have had their programme on hold and it's the right thing to do, if we want to make sure that we are ready to deal with these challenges in the region."
The New Zealand foreign minister, Murray McCully.
