Letters for Monday September 27, 2021

Dear Editor,

Another great and well-informed article Thomas (Bubble brings dollars, but when do we diversify? Cook Islands News, Saturday September 25).

This has been a massive wakeup call to the Cook Islands that they can’t continue to rely so heavily on tourism as the primary source of income but for the immediate future and to refill the coffers, tourism needs to return. Then you start working on diversifying the income streams (and I don’t mean sacrificing the seabed).

You can never hope to keep the virus out forever. Even without tourists, there is always the chance that a returning local could carry the virus in. NZ is also geographically isolated and that gave it a good chance to keep the virus out but returning Kiwis brought it with them, even with testing. If there was a large outbreak in NZ, the hospital system would collapse under the burden.

Until such time as scientists discover a better way to control corona virus, we will have to depend on the vaccine as our front line of defence.

Cook Island locals are some of the most highly vaccinated in the world. Sooner or later, you will have to put your faith not only in God but also in the vaccine. Meitaki maata.

Brian Hillis

(Facebook)

Football elections

A new president of Cook Islands Football Association is a good omen.  Worldwide the sport is trying to clean out the rotten wood in its management.

I heard CIFA get something like $1million funding, easy to look good as the leader, when you can pay board members, officials, uniforms and equipment without fundraising. 

Sport federations (all federations) get funding, then it becomes a feeding ground for thieves who use their positions to take the funds for themselves. Then if they get found out, they don’t get convicted, they don’t pay it back and they get to stay in their position or they get a similar job in another sport or CISNOC. It’s time all the rotten wood is cleaned out of sports federations.

Time will tell if CIFA changes now or will it be the same, showing either the rot was only at the top or if it is deep down through the ranks.

Fresh start

(Name and address supplied)

Local ‘James Bond’

Where is our new 007 protection agent? The national security grapevine is quiet. If the head of national security didn’t follow through on the election fraud cases he was given when he was the police boss, how do we expect him to act on information about our security?

We haven’t seen the new Police Commissioner act yet, maybe he will or won’t.

Guarding Paradise

(Name and address supplied)