Islanders’ cash goes missing

Press, 19 August 1981, Page 9

Islanders’ cash goes missing

NZPA London Fast-talking American businessmen have made off with hundreds of thousands of dollars belonging to the Government of the newly independent Pacific island of Tuvalu, the London "Daily Telegraph" has reported. And individuals, local-gov-ernment bodies, and the Church of Tuvalu also handed over their savings totalling more than $828,000. The “Telegraph” said that Tuvalu’s Prime Minister (Mr Toalipi Lauti) gave more than $777,450 in Government funds to a Californian businessmen to be invested at a . promised 15 per cent annual interest.

He was followed by Texans with promises of plots of land in west Texas with a "rich agricultural potential" on which future generations of Tuvaluans could live and

work as part of the American dream. In a tiny nation where the per-capital annual income is $285, the paper said, the missing money has become the dominant issue in the coming election on September 8. The islands Parliament has already demanded that the Prime Minister recover the Treasury funds he entrusted to the Californian visitor.

Meanwhile, the Tuvaulans who invested with the Texans were shocked to hear a description provided by the United States Federal trade Commission as the land being "barren in parts and mountainous in others."

Many have now defaulted on their instalment payments and their down payments mav have been forfeited.