Transcript
Penrhyn Islanders say they've been waiting since last September on supplies the company promised to deliver. A former mayor of Penrhyn Tini Ford says the island needs all their supplies from the vessel Tiare Tiaporo, which has been sitting beside the wharf in Rarotonga doing nothing.
"And our supplies still on the boat since last year. We need everything the supplies, we need the building materials, we need food. Everything we needed on the island in that boat."
Tini Ford says the islanders have also received no payment for freezer loads of fish worth thousands of dollars and other goods it gave the company to export to Rarotonga.
"We never received any cent of that money of that fish til now. We are still waiting. I'm sick of these people doing this to my people."
A former Penrhyn MP and lawyer acting for some residents, Wilkie Rasmussen says Pacific Schooners owes 25 households almost 60-thousand US dollars - a significant sum for an island of about 120 people. He says the company has failed to live up to its end of the deal it made with the island's fisher people and he's preparing to file a statement of claim next week to recover the money they're owed.
"They said look what you do is you fish, you fill in the freezers, we'll take freezers, sell it and then pay you your share. And that's what they've done, and they've sold some but they haven't paid any money back."
Wilkie Rasmussen says Pacific Schooners has made assurances it will pay the money it owes the people of Penrhyn, but he believes the company is in serious financial difficulty. The Transport Ministry's Maritime Director Stephen Simpson says they've received questions regarding the company's vessel, but it's not their responsibility.
"All I can say at this stage is that the vessel and the company have so far not breached any of the conditions of its licence to operate and we will not be taking any action because of that lack of breach."
Wilkie Rasmussen says a boat from another company Taio Shipping was able to deliver some of the food supplies to Penrhyn last month, but there is still a lack of frozen food on the island.
"Tapi's boat went over last month. When it got there its freezer was frozen was broken so all the frozen food had gone off and so the island is sitting there without any kind of frozen food. And of course some of them have their freezers over here in which they have filled in with fish, they sent it across, and so people are without food storage on the island."
Wilkie Rasmussen says they hope to transport more supplies to Penrhyn soon. He says he understand Pacific Schooners also failed to deliver some supplies to the islands of Manihiki and Pukapuka, but he believes Penrhyn was the most adversely affected. The company has yet to respond to RNZ International's request for comment.
