Dear Editor, seabed mining announcements for the three companies, followed by a glamorous signing ceremony, all smiles and accolades by PM Mark Brown.

Surrounding this public fanfare, is the ingrained conflict of interest by a company called CIIC Seabed Resources Ltd. The directors are Mike Henry, current Cook Islands Investment Corporation board chairman, Tamarii Tutangata, former Investment Corporation CEO. All directors are paid Crown employees, in one way or another and PM Mark Brown turns a blind eye to this unusual arrangement. So where is the integrity in this whole process? Mates supporting party mates, wow!

Disturbing when Mark Brown says to our departing fruit pickers, who are unemployed, to stay and help us pick our golden apples, meaning our nodules. Its ok for Mark Brown to say this because he is on a very high salary paid from taxes earned by the people.

Can the PM Mark Brown tell the people of this country, when (date and year) does he estimate, will be the first harvest of extractive manganese nodules and from this, what value or expected revenue will the people of this country expect from this harvest? Please we want to know this information mainly because this is election year 2022.

Please do not get our hopes high as most of our great grandparents, grandparents and parents who have waited since 1965, have passed away. Now, after more than 57 years, their children are still waiting?

Searching for Nemo
(Name and address supplied)

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Reply – There are a number of inaccuracies which need to be corrected in this anonymous letter to the editor.

CIIC Seabed Resources Ltd (CIICSR) is a Joint Venture Company owned 50 per cent by the Cook Islands Investment Corporation (CIIC) and 50 per cent by GSR-Cook Islands (GSR-CI). GSR-CI, is a subsidiary of Deme, a Belgium multi-national company.

The CIICSR Board is made up of five members: three appointed by CIIC and two appointed by GSR-CI.

The three persons appointed by CIIC are: Mark Short, Michael Henry and Tamarii Tutangata. Michael Henry does not receive remuneration for his directorship services to CIICSR. Similar to other CIIC entities in establishment mode, they are temporarily populated with CIIC directors, and are phased out over time as permanent directors are appointed.

The two GSR-CI appointed directors are Kris Van Nijen and Phillip Hermans whom are based in Belgium.

CIIC has a transparent and robust process for directorship appointments. More information on this process can be found on our website: www.ciic.gov.ck.

Allan Jensen
Chief Executive Officer
Cook Islands Investment Corporation