George Maggie Angene (born 8 March 1961) is a

Cook Islands The Cook Islands is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of 15 islands whose total land area is approximately . The Cook Islands' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers of ocean. Avarua is its ...

politician and

Cabinet Minister A minister is a politician who heads a ministry, making and implementing decisions on policies in conjunction with the other ministers. In some jurisdictions the head of government is also a minister and is designated the ' prime minister', ' p ...

. He is a former member of the

Cook Islands Party The Cook Islands Party is a nationalist political party in the Cook Islands. It was the first political party founded in the Cook Islands, and one of the two major parties of the islands' politics since 1965. From 1999 until 2005 it sometimes ...

, and is now a member of the One Cook Islands Movement. Angene was born in Tupapa Rarotonga and attended a local primary school, but received no secondary education. He is a former criminal who has served time in prison and describes himself as "one of the biggest criminals on Rarotonga". He became infamous in Rarotonga when he in 1992 set fire to the building block encompassing Ministry of Justice, Cook Islands Post Office and Telecom which were all badly damaged. Angene was sentenced to 13 years' jail for arson but was paroled and released in 1999. He learned new skills in prison and converted to Christianity. He was selected as

candidate for Tupapa–Maraerenga in a public runoff, and subsequently won the seat in the 2010 election. In May 2014 Angene was expelled from the CIP after publicly refusing to back the party's position on superannuation. He stood instead for the One Cook Islands Movement and was re-elected in the 2014 election. He was re-elected again at the 2018 election. Following the election he was appointed to Cabinet as Minister of Corrective Services, Culture, Business Trade and Investment Board and the House of Ariki and rejoined the

. In the reshuffle following the appointment of Mark Brown as Prime Minister he surrendered the Business Trade and Investment Board portfolio to Patrick Arioka, and became Minister of the Punanga Nui Market instead. He retained his other portfolios. A further reshuffle in June 2021 saw him retain his core portfolios, and gain responsibility for the Head of State. In April 2021 an audit report found that Angene had acted improperly in arranging day-release for a convicted child-murderer to work in a tourism business. In June 2021 he called for planned elections in 2022 to be delayed if the COVID-19 crisis continued in order to save money. He ran as a

candidate in the 2022 election and was re-elected. He stated that this would be his last term.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Angene, George Living people 1961 births People from Rarotonga Members of the Parliament of the Cook Islands Cook Islands Party politicians One Cook Islands Movement politicians Cook Island prisoners and detainees Prisoners and detainees of the Cook Islands People convicted of arson Cook Island criminals Government ministers of the Cook Islands Culture ministers of the Cook Islands