Islands Business - Whispers

HEADS TO ROLL in Vanuatu?; NAURU IN Digicel net; FUEL FOR thought; BEAUTY CONTEST turns ugly

Heads to roll in Vanuatu? At least three people may be joining the unemployment queue for causing an em bar rasing scene when Vanuatu Prime Minister Ham Lini led his delegation to join his Melanesian counterparts for the Air Niugini-chartered jet back home. A very senior Lini adviser had to take on the role of tracking down delegation members—dressing them up to give them a decent look and dressing them down in sheer anger and frustration. One, a security personnel, was found outside another leader’s door without a shirt and another, a worker in Lini’s office, was rounded up outside his beachside room in his underwear!

Nauru in Digicel net: With Digicel now in Samoa, soon in Papua New Guinea, Solomons and most probably Fiji and Tonga, the giant Caribbean mobile telephone giant is adding another country in its growing list: Nauru. On the periphery of the Pacific Islands Forum summit of Pacific leaders in Fiji, Digicel executives quietly met Nauru Government officials. According to senior minister, Dr Kieren Keke, they expect Digicel technicians in the island republic in the next month or so. The news is god-sent to Nauruans who had to put up with unworkable telephones for years.

Still on Nauru... its re-named international carrier Our Airlines now wants to go down the path where even angels fear to fly! Nauru is offering its northern neighbours of Micronesia the rare opportunity to co-own a Boeing 737-300 paid for by Taiwan. Nauru is offering potential shareholders as high as 20 percent shares in Our Airlines, even if they are to be shared equally amongst the countries. Nauru is certainly trying to make good on the original plans of Fiji’s Air Pacific, which was supposed to be an airline owned by Pacific islands nations. The plan fell through mainly due to lack of political will. The Fiji Government and Qantas now hold majority shares in the airline, with very negligible shares still held by Tonga and Samoa.

Talk of paranoia: Some Melanesian officials took great pain in spreading the whisper that outspoken Solomon Islands premier Manasseh Sogavare will be arrested by Australian authorities when he arrived in Fiji for the Pacific Islands Forum meeting. So much so that Fijian police detectives assigned as his security were briefed to be true Melanesians and fight any attempt to “kidnap” their keep. Even the staff of the resort where the leaders stayed were startled when approached by PNG officials wanting to know to which island nation patrol boats anchored offshore belong to. Insistence by staff that they were part of the Fiji Navy got an immediate response; “You sure it’s not the Australian Navy?”

Upgraded in no time: Despite the overbearing Nadi sun, some organisers were left red-faced when one of the 16 Pacific Islands Forum leaders was assigned an ordinary room in the exclusive resort which hosted the meeting. After learning that all the other 15 leaders were being assigned ocean view villas, which come complete with a kitchen, lounge and master bedroom, Tuvalu officials lodged queries only to have their leader swiftly “upgraded” in no time. The ‘perils’ of being small, sometimes.

Freedom or no freedom? What does a laptop, cellphone and fax machine all have in common? For state prosecutors and police in the Solomon Islands, the answer can mean the provision of freedom or its withdrawal for some of the country’s movers and shakers, so is the whisper in the dusty seaside town of Honiara. The computer and phone were confiscated from suspended attorney-general, Julian Moti who is wanted by Australia for child sex charges, while the fax belonging to the office of the PM was seized when local police accompanied by two Australian officers with RAMSI secured a warrant and raided the double storey office of Mannaseh Sogavare, only after he had left for the Forum summit in Fiji. The whisper is that all information solicited from the electronic gadgets will all be revealed at the next court hearing.

Retainer questions: First, it hired two junior associates and offered them regular contracts at the most senior adviser levels without advertising the position. Now it is been whispered that the same regional organisation has staff who operate externally as retainers and one of these retainer staff is closely related to the boss.

Still on regional organisations... It’s been whispered that in another regional organisation, a precedent has been set: a very senior staff member, apparently one with a designation as manager corporate services, has gone on a one-year leave without pay. One regional observer said this is unheard of in the history of regional organisations.

New Miss Samoa Poinsettia Taefu

Beauty contest turns ugly: The Miss Samoa pageant has come to be one of the country’s most high profile annual events, drawing contestants not just from around Samoa but also from Samoan communities in New Zealand, Australia and the United States. But for the first time in its long history, the pageant this year was marred by an unseemly controversy. Less than a week after National University of Samoa (NUS) student Pearl McFall was declared the new Miss Samoa for 2006-07 in September, a contestant from overseas raised public objection challenging her win. As it turned out, McFall had not declared her correct age in the contest entry forms. According to her actual date of birth, she was about four weeks short of eighteen years—the minimum age to enter the contest. The date declared on the application indicated she was already eighteen. Under the glare of the media, McFall surrendered the title and tiara to the committee. The first runner-up, Poinsettia Taefu, also of the NUS, was declared Miss Samoa.

Big, bad Fiji TV: Once it was TVNZ which upset Pacific Islands television stations with its control of programming for the region. No more. Fiji Television is the outfit causing anger. This is over the way it now dominates regional programming and allegedly shuts out other stations to promote its own satellite-delivered regional Sky Pacific Pay TV service.

A flurry of recent emails between other Pacific Islands TV stations has led them to approach the International Rugby Board. They are seeking help over Fiji TV policies which they say keep international rugby from their local viewers.

One prominent executive says in the exchange: “Fiji TV is interested only in achieving its goal to dominate the TV industry in the region.” The regional spotlight is on Fiji TV’s commercial specialist, Canadian Ken Clark. Clark is the architect of Fiji TV’s policies and push into other island markets through its Sky Pacific Pay-TV service.

Hush, not a word: The Fiji Pacific Islands Forum meeting was dubbed a success. Much of that success was due to the resources provided by friends of Fiji such as Australia, Papua New Guinea and others. One particular donor, China, insisted it did not want to be revealed as a donor because as a Fiji foreign official said, “China did not want to cause trouble with Australia”.

Fuel for thought: Papua New Guineans can’t be accused of lacking entrepreneurial skills. Springing along some of Port Moresby’s roadsides are fuel vendors illegally selling fuel products like diesel, engine oil, brake fuel and others to PMV operators. The black market fuel trading has created some concerns amongst authorities there.

Is it the end? Will we continue to see and read the Journal of Pacific Studies? Word is that it may be closing down due to lack of commitment from senior management at the University of the South Pacific.

Gay Pacific holidays: International conman Peter Foster’s well-publicised yarn that a new resort in Fiji was offering young boys for sex to foreign tourists may have got some people thinking.

The tourism conference in French Polynesia heard that the region was well positioned to cash in on the growing gay tourist market if it could offer services and benefits tailored to this niche of the market. Smaller countries could well benefit from this strategy at the expense of more established markets like Fiji that ban gay sex by law and therefore exclude themselves from this lucrative niche.

Fighting cigarettes: We’ve heard of all kinds of campaigns that fight cigarettes and smoking. But there’s a one-of-a-kind public-private partnership in Tonga that’s fighting cigarettes—just counterfeit ones, not the real sticks! The country’s customs authorities and a global tobacco giant’s local Tongan operation have joined hands with a MOU to fight the big racket in counterfeit ciggies that’s plaguing the country. Paying consumers have the right to the genuine product, says the cigarette company’s representative. Wonder if smoking counterfeit ciggies causes counterfeit cancer, we’d like to ask!

Looking to Asia: With its relationships with its richest Pacific neighbour having turned sour, Papua New Guinea is looking the other way.
It has chalked out plans for an impressive roadshow to travel to Singapore, China and other fast-growing Asian countries to woo investments into PNG.
In early 2007, it will send its team of nearly eighteen agencies further afield to Malaysia. It’s not just PNG that’s being attracted to Asia’s booming economy. No less a personage than Prince Harry is travelling to India to invite businesspersons to invest in the United Kingdom!

Drawing the line: Knowing where to draw the line can be quite difficult at times. Take the case of a very senior Fiji Government official, who also happens to be the chairperson of the country’s only superannuation fund.

He wrote to government on a compensation matter relating to the fund.

Guess what he did? Instead of using the fund’s letterhead, he used his department’s letterhead.

Those in the know say that as chair of the fund’s board, his role is more of policy matters and the person who should be writing to the government on this matter should have been the head honcho of the fund.