Prime Minister Mark Brown has indicated that the government has adopted the public works model to complete the Manihiki Airport upgrade as it enables them to stay within the budget allocation compared to awarding the project to a private contractor.

This model would be used for other outer islands’ infrastructure improvements, Brown said during the February Parliament Sitting, in response to Opposition Member of Parliament Teariki Heather, who inquired about the Ministry of Infrastructure Cook Islands’ (ICI) plan to undertake the sealing of the Manihiki airport.

Heather asked why ICI, which already had significant responsibilities in Rarotonga, was taking on this project in Manihiki, highlighting capability and capacity.

Brown explained that the initial cost estimates for the Manihiki airport upgrade, provided by their consultant firm ACOM and others in New Zealand, indicated that the cost would be high if a private company were to conduct the work.

“In fact, the cost will be two to three times more than if the government took on this job itself because there are costs associated with private contractors that are not associated with government contracts,” the Prime Minister said.

“What we have done is turn back the clock to a model that suits small island economies like ours to be able to carry out large infrastructure cost projects.”

Brown said that it did not matter if the project was sealing an airport for a hundred people or a hundred thousand people, the cost was still the same.

“But that cost when you divide it over a smaller population means that we pay disproportionally high costs for our infrastructure projects as small island states,” he said.

“And we found that if the government were to take on this project using what we call the public works model. Our airport built back in the day use this public works model where we had engineers like George Cowan and others and the government public works carrying out the work.”

Brown, who is also the country’s Finance Minister, said the Ministry of Finance and Economic Management and the procurement team have found that utilising this model again would give significant savings to the project.

“The first point to consider is that a private company not only needs to cover the project’s costs but also must include a margin for profit. For a large, one-time project that involves significant capital investment in machinery and equipment, this profit margin can be quite substantial,” Brown said.

“Therefore, we have determined that by adopting a public works model, we can execute the necessary work to the required standards while staying within the budget allocations we have available to us.

“And I have no doubt that when this particular model of project is complete on Manihiki, it will be replicated on our other islands as well as to improve their infrastructure.”

According to ICI, the Manihiki Airport Improvement Project aims to reconstruct and surface the existing coral runway at Manihiki Airport, located in Tukao Village.

Earlier, Prime Minister Brown reiterated the government’s plan to bring each of the islands into the wider Cook Islands economy.

He said that the government would need to build the infrastructure to enable that, so harbours and ports need to be upgraded, airports need to be sealed so that they can have better connectivity with better flights and cheaper fares to the Pa Enua.

Brown had also said that any cooperation on infrastructure investment with China would use the public works model the government adopted for the Manihiki Airport upgrade “to fit within the appropriation budget that we have”.

A public works model is where an agency takes primary responsibility for the management, delivery and, where applicable, completion of a works project or public services, rather than contracting with a prime contractor (or similar) to undertake such responsibility.

According to the government, a public works model may be used where it is a more efficient and more cost-effective method of completing public works or providing public services instead of procuring it from the private sector.