Satish Chand
Have you ever been short-changed of services you paid (or voted) for? Read on if you answered in the affirmative.

A senior bureaucrat from the region on a short course at the Australian National University was asked of his most memorable experience during his short stay in Canberra. He told his class that he was amazed by the quality of services he received.

A well-fed family man being on his own in miserable Canberra winter recounted the polite and prompt service at several fast food chains in town. Memorable indeed for someone who got well served each time he rocked up to the counter hungry and cold.

This claim of promptness and politeness of services in Australia is true so long as you steer clear of the airports. I invariably get searched for explosives (not that I carry many!) and on every occasion I get herded through Australian customs. On each of these occasions, I am shown a printed white laminated sheet of fine print before being collared aside and scanned whist being told that this was just a ‘random pick’. For someone who is through airports at least once a month, I just wish I had the same luck (did I say luck?) with my weekly lotto ‘quick picks’!

While on the subject of airports, I have three nasties I would like to share with you. On my way to attend a funeral in Fiji some years ago, I was stopped at Sydney Airport by an Air Pacific staffer because my little son had his Australian passport expiring within the three months of the date of departure. (Incidentally, my relatives don’t warn me as to when they are going to die.) This staffer, on being explained the reason for the travel, the fact that my wife and I carried Fiji passports, and that we were going to return to Australia in a week, promised to obtain clearance from the Fijian authorities before letting us through.

She came back half-an-hour later to tell us that Fiji immigration had declined our request. My wife, on hearing the verdict, burst into tears—now you know whose relative had died, which drew the attention of a Qantas staffer nearby. He not only told us that he did not believe her but also assisted us in calling the Fiji embassy in Canberra. We were issued our boarding passes after the ambassador intervened.

Let me bore you with two more ‘airport-mishaps’ in the hope that this will save you similar problems. On a more recent trip out of Nausori, I was advised by a baggage handler there to put my 10-kg cabin bag in the cargo-hold as it was ‘too heavy’. This advice was given after the bag had been x-rayed, thus the adviser knew of the contents. While in transit, the bag was ‘lightened’ of every item of value, a fact I only discovered on collection in Sydney.

The prize for notoriety, however, goes to the experience of Bill (not his true name for reasons of confidentiality), a Canberra comrade of mine, on his way to attend his mother’s funeral in Labasa (on the island of Vanua Levu, Fiji).

Reaching Nadi (on Viti Levu) from Canberra, he informed me later was a breeze but getting to Labasa for the funeral at 2pm the following day was a nightmare—all thanks to the efforts of a staffer of the local airline.
Bill on reaching Nadi told the staffer of his plight and was advised to come the following day as ‘all flights to Labasa on the day were full’.

Bill turned up first thing in the morning but was repeated the same advice until late in the morning when he was rushed to a flight to Savusavu (a good hour’s journey by road from Labasa). This staffer had told Bill that this was the only seat available to Vanua Levu on the day. Bill obliged to the request of payment in cash but was not issued a ticket. Here is the rub, however: on getting on-board, Bill saw that half the seats on the plane were empty! Clearly, this staffer had extracted a bribe from Bill, defrauded his employer in the process, and left Bill with a tense and costly cab ride from Savusavu.

Airports, however, are not the only places where ordinary folks get short-changed of the services they deserve. Get into any government office around the region with a stopwatch and count the hours before you get served—try the registrar of births and deaths or the passport office in your country, but take a mat or sleeping bag with you just in case. I will spare you the horror stories from some of our hospitals, post offices, and police stations where patients (that is, dead bodies), parcels, and prisoners respectively, regularly go missing.

Services within the private sector do not fare much better either. Let me relay you my own experience of the difference in the quality of services provided by the same provider—a multinational car rental company. Being their ‘preferred’ client, I get the privilege of witnessing the difference in the quality of services provided across countries. My last experience from Suva is illuminating on this count.

I was delivered a car to the hotel that had not been cleaned while the handbrake had to be nearly whacked out of its socket before it worked. I have, however, received impeccable services by the same provider in Australia, New Zealand, and the USA. I could go on a lot longer, but you probably get the message.

I am perplexed as to how a region with the most hospitable people manages to stuff up so badly when it comes to delivering services? An analogous question arises in considering the quality of services delivered by our leaders, many of whom are quick to promise, particularly at elections, but loathe delivering.

Are the poor services because, like scum, the worst amongst us float to the top or is it that the power and prestige of the few well-paid positions around corrupts even the very best of us? It could be both, but a bit more competition and greater accountability could go a long way in improving service delivery in the island-Pacific. And yes, we do deserve better!