Acehtsunami

Aid from New Zealand to Pacific tsunami victims was delayed for more than a week by a tender process, leaving Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully “stunned” and “disappointed”.
As a result, the Government is setting up two new multimillion-dollar funds to speed up disaster assistance.

Mr McCully told the foreign affairs and trade select committee this week that he was disappointed a time-consuming tender process was needed before money could be allocated to aid agencies after the Pacific earthquake and tsunami last September.

“I was stunned after the Pacific tsunami that we had to go through a short-form tender process to issue funds that needed to be allocated within hours,” Mr McCully conveyed.