Pacific

Loan deal prompts French Polynesia mobile phone strike threat

12:04 pm on 9 April 2012

A union at French Polynesia's Tikiphone company has issued a strike notice in protest at the company lending the government more than 50 million US dollars.

The A tia I mua union says it also plans to strike at the mobile phone provider on Wednesday because it wants its charges to be lowered.

Tikiphone is a subsidiary of the publicly owned OPT whose management last month approved the loan to the cash-strapped government.

It said it secured the deal at an interest of 4.4 percent which it says isn't matched by the banks that offer at the most 3.7 percent.

The loan arrangement was struck after the government of Oscar Temaru failed to get money from the CPS social security fund and amid an ongoing dispute with France's development bank.