The director of the Cook Islands audit office says a review of the facts surrounding an allegation that a New Zealand ministerial delegation failed to pay departure tax will be released this week.
Rarotonga was one of the stops in a pre-Pacific Islands forum tour of Polynesia by the Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully and representatives of government agencies, the business community and NGOs.
Paul Allsworth says his office received a complaint that none of the delegation paid the 45 US dollar tax, resulting in a total unpaid amount of almost two-and-a-half-thousand US dollars.
Mr Allsworth says his office is reviewing the process through which Mr McCully's delegation may have been granted an exemption.
But the Minister for Tourism and Education, Teina Bishop, says the delegation received a waiver from paying the compulsory departure tax when it left the country but an invoice would be sent later.
Mr Bishop's ministry has received an invoice for the tax, which has been forwarded to the Cook Islands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration.
But there is confusion at the ministry as to the location of the invoice.
