Page 6 - Islands Business March 2024

Briefs Briefs

from high-end source markets like North America and
mainland France, the Statistics Institute of French Polynesia
Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands announced. The figure does not include cruise liner visitors
A special committee has been formed to look into the (43,887 from 63 vessels in 2023). The record is expected to
unpaid utility bills of the government of the Commonwealth be surpassed again this year as French Polynesia is hosting the
of Northern Mariana Islands, which has now ballooned to a surfing chapter of the Paris 2024 Olympics on the iconic beach
whopping US$77.8 million. CNMI Senate President, Edith E. of Teahupo’o.
DeLeon Guerrero underscored the need to investigate the
government’s unpaid power bill in a bid to find ways to settle
the arrears, which was incurred by government departments,
political subdivisions and public corporations. Guam
The US Environmental Protection Agency has announced
nearly US$43 million to upgrade water infrastructure for
Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
Cook Islands (CNMI). The US Environmental Protection Agency said the
A Cook Islands MP says nobody is interested in buying the funding will be used to upgrade drinking water, wastewater,
NZ$1.7 million (US$1.04 million) fleet of electric vehicles and stormwater infrastructure for both US territories.
purchased by the government for the Pacific Islands Forum
Leaders’ meeting last year. When Democratic Party leader, Tina
Browne, was asked in parliament why she had returned one
of the 25 cars purchased by the government, Browne said the Kiribati
electric vehicle was allocated to their office by the Ministry The United States has cautioned Pacific Island nations
of Finance and Economic Management because the party’s car against receiving assistance from Chinese security forces after
needed replacing, and there had been no public interest in Reuters reported that Chinese police are working in Kiribati.
buying the vehicles. She said the car was used once but could “We do not believe importing security forces from the PRC
not be recharged because the charging stations were out of will help any Pacific Island country. Instead, doing so risks
order. fuelling regional and international tensions,” a spokesperson
for the US State Department said when asked to comment on
the Reuters report. Up to a dozen uniformed Chinese police
arrived in 2023 on a six-month rotation.
Federated States of Micronesia
A first-of-its-kind Citizens Budget has been launched by FSM’s
Department of Finance and Administration. The department
said the intention of the Citizens Budget is to present to Marshall Islands
the public in non-technical language, the approved FY2024 The Marshall Islands wants a UN treaty banning nuclear
Budget, improving budget transparency in regard to what is weapons amended before it’s ratified. President Hilda Heine
appropriated and how the budget process works. The budget said if certain provisions in the Treaty on the Prohibition
projected revenue of US$67.69 million and expenditure of of Nuclear Weapons are not changed, they cannot move
US$64.43 million in FY2024. forward. President Heine said the existing language of the
treaty states that nuclear-affected countries are responsible
for victim assistance and environmental remediation, in other
Fiji words, the Marshall Islands needs to clean up the ‘mess’ and
Former Fiji prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, has been harm the US caused it. March 1 marked the 70th anniversary
found guilty of illegally shutting down a sensitive police of the most powerful US nuclear bomb test in the Marshall
investigation. He was convicted of perverting the course of Islands at Bikini Atoll.
justice in a matter relating to a police investigation into staff
at Fiji’s University of the South Pacific in July 2020. He had
been found not guilty of the charge by a magistrate’s court in
October last year, but the case was returned to Suva’s High Nauru
Court following an appeal by the prosecution. Suspended Nauru’s Trust Fund is now valued at A$337.5 million
police commissioner, Sitiveni Qiliho, was convicted of one (US$223.17 million), with President David Adeang saying it
count of abuse of office. The men will be sentenced on March is growing better than most, if not all, trust funds in the
28. region. The Fund was set up in 2015 to be untouched until
2035, enabling it to include higher risk and higher growth
investments in its portfolio.

French Polynesia
A record number of tourists visited French Polynesia in
2023. Some 262,000 arrivals were recorded, with 90% coming

6 Islands Business, March 2024