Transcript
Still only seven people have been found out of the 88 who reportedly boarded the ill-fated catamaran before it left Nonouti island headed for the capital Tarawa - a two day journey it never completed.
The local MP for Nonouti, Sir Ieremaia Tabai, the country's first president, says he has been pushing, along with other opposition MPs, for government to agree to an independent inquiry into the disaster.
"To start asking the hard questions. Why did it happen? Why the government did not know the thing in time and it was late to try and do the search and rescue? So we can know for sure what actually happened. And at the end of the day we hope that, so we can prevent a similar situation happening in the future."
Sir Ieremaia Tabai's comments are in relation to the government's failure to report the boat missing for a week after it failed to arrive as scheduled in the capital.
A delay the acting director of New Zealand's Rescue Coordination Centre Kevin Banaghan says significantly reduced the passengers chances of survival.
"The sooner we can get an asset on scene the smaller the search area is and the more likelihood we are going to have a result. In this case there was a lot of miscommunication and in fact there was no communication until the 26th and the vessel had been, the incident occurred on the 18th of January so it was some five days earlier. "
Regarding the Kiribati government's suspension of aerial support for the search effort Mr Banaghan says they are confident if anyone was still within the search area they would have found them by now.
"Yeah we have searched an area the size of New Zealand with four very sophisticated aircraft and these aircraft on day one found the very first survivors. So I cant understand why we havent found anymore. Either that or its just they are not in the area."
Even so, news the aerial search has been suspended will hit affected families hard according to the editor of Radio Kiribati Rikimati Naare.
"They have been looking, searching for answers from the government and wanting to hear what is the outcome of the search. But now that the search has been called off it is, you know, heartbreaking for those families."
In reality it is only the aerial support for the search that has been suspended but Sir Ieremaia says people in Kiribati know two weeks is a long time to be lost at sea.
"The accident happened about a week before the search has started. It is very hard to survive in the open sea without any support at all. You will probably be a day or two and after that you are gone and people understand that."
At least six vessels will continue the search over the next few days, going back over the area where the MV Butiraoi is believed to have sunk.
Police in Tarawa say they are expecting the Patrol Boat with the seven survivors onboard to reach the capital around midday Saturday.
