Islands Business - Whispers

Strmy seas for Forum Line; Regional debate; Fiji wants RIF halted

Stormy seas for Forum Line: One of the region’s success stories, the Pacific Forum Line, has run into some rougher waters in recent times. Long-time and respected chief executive John MacLennan has faced questioning. In the Cook Islands, they’re irate over a move to stop services there by the ship Forum Rarotonga. In the region, there’s continuing questions over rumours of moves to sell all or part of the line, owned by a group of Pacific Islands Forum governments. Indications are of strong opposition to any proposed sale. The Forum Line has helped keep other shipping lines honest and freight rates to the islands down, as well as being commercially successful.

Management style: A regional organisation boss is on his way out after completing his two three-year terms. But that has not stopped his staff from complaining about his management style. One particular incident was in May when the contract of his Corporate Services Manager was allowed to expire without the director advising him if his term would be extended. A day after his contract expired the director told him his term would be extended for a further three years and signed off on it. Lo, behold, one week later, the director came back and said “sorry, I’ll only give you a year’s extension.” Well, no wonder there is low morale within the organisation. The low morale issue has also been raised by an independent review of the organisation commissioned by AUSAID and NZAID—two major funders of the organisation.

Huge deficit: That's not all, word is the organisation could be heading for a $600,000 deficit—due largely to its head who has been using the regional organisation’s resources and time to travel around the Pacific, of course business class, lobbying for nomination for one of the region’s top positions. One observer said it is a bit hard to talk about good governance in Pacific islands countries when some CROP agencies are managed so badly. One thing is for sure, the CROP senior appointment ‘merry-go-round’ of bureaucrats and diplomats has to stop.

Talking about CROP... Fiji is understood to have presented a paper at the Forum Officials Committee (FOC) meeting held in Fiji last month, calling for the halting of the restructure of regional organisations known as RIF (Regional Institutional Framework). But Fiji was told nicely by none other than the acting Forum secretary-general that FOC can’t make changes as the leaders have already made their decision. If they want to change that, then they will need to take it back to the leaders when they meet in Niue this month. WHISPERS understands there has been some behind the scene moves to try and stop RIF as some regional CROP organisations' heads feel threatened by the restructure.

Regional debate: Lively debate over how to respond to the Fiji regime’s plans for media regulation is going on in an e-mail forum that includes influential regional media types. Suva-based PINA, which bills itself as the voice of the islands media, is under fire for taking a wait-and-see approach. Some have suggested moving PINA’s secretariat from Suva because of the pressures in Fiji. The Cook Islands and Solomon Islands have both offered to host the secretariat. The Samoans will also be more than willing. They’ve always said the PINA secretariat should be in Apia because that’s where PINA was registered and officially founded as a regional organisation.

Bad losers: Funny things happen to people or teams when they lose. I guess that must have been what happened to the Kiwis when their champion All Blacks got beaten by the Boks recently. One die-hard All Blacks fan working for a TV station must have found it very hard to swallow the loss. New Zealand rugby fans watching a regular sports programme found themselves viewing hardcore pornography instead on Sunday afternoon. Four minutes of pornography interrupted sports coverage on a prime television channel, after what a spokesman described as a distribution mix up. The pornographic footage was meant for an adult pay-per-view channel. Instead, it found its way on to a regular free-to-air programme called Grassroots Rugby. Rival television channels reported that some viewers were angry about the broadcast, which may have been seen by children.

Telco doyens depart: Two senior members of the Pacific Islands telecommunications business are leaving their long-time jobs, albeit in different ways. In Honiara, British Cable and Wireless veteran Martyn Robinson is departing after 17 years running Our Telekom, formerly Solomon Telekom. This follows a revolt by local staff protesting against his management. In Rarotonga, the popular Stuart Davies stepped down as chief executive of Telecom Cook Islands. He is off to take a new role with the regional Asia Pacific Telecommunity in Bangkok.

Aquarius Fiji again: The Aquarius Rarotonga hotel across the road from Rarotonga International Airport is now firmly back in the hands of Fiji management. An agreement for New Zealand-Cook Islands developer Tim Tepaki’s group to operate and buy the property has been terminated. It came amidst problems over land, staffing, management capacity and treatment of the property. Aquarius owners Terry and Louise Buckley and chief executive Leonard Chan were flying in from Fiji to begin restoring the Aquarius touch. The Aquarius Rarotonga will now be returned to management in the same style as the successful Aquarius Fiji, near Nadi International Airport.

Popularity stakes: Fiji seemed to have topped the popularity stakes at the Pacific Arts Festival—just completed in Pago Pago in American Samoa. Organisers say the festival is estimated to cost US$10 million. Observers said there were a few hiccups—one of them being the programme. Four programmes were floating around during the festival but none was correct. Team leaders had to meet every morning to know what was happening. Sometimes there were programmes scheduled for the day but they did not happen! One morning, delegates turned up at a gym for a church service only to find there was none happening.

Still on the festival... everybody was talking about NZ! The delegation brought two chefs and all their ingredients from NZ. So like one Sunday when everybody else was pigging out, NZ had sandwiches and stuck to themselves and their own parties. At an all-important kava ceremony, all delegation leaders were told there would be no performance. But the NZ delegation performed the haka anyway with the MC saying: "NZ please keep moving, you are holding up the parade. NZ! That’s enough”, but they continued their haka and as they walked away, the MC said: "NZ, extra time is three minutes, not 10 minutes".

Women power: Interesting stats always pop up in conferences and meetings. In a land conference in Vanuatu recently, it was heard in one of its sessions on Women, Customary Land and Development that between US$42 billion to US$47 billion is lost due to restrictions of women’s participation in the economy. Food for thought eh?

Follow the leader: As representatives of governments and institutions of major countries around the world gathered in Korea to discuss the future of the Internet, we in the Pacific were too busy grappling with our local politics and bread and butter issues. Were we missing out on something? One observer didn’t think so. Apart from not being members of the world’s elite country club, there is simply no reason to care whether the Internet had a future or not. After all, weren’t we the ones who usually gullibly follow after the big boys have set the trend?

Military connections: It appears it pays to be related to the military. Wife of a military officer, did not have problems getting a job after returning from a very short stint overseas. Although she did not get her old job back, which was a specialised one, she got one on the same level but in a totally different field. But first there had to be a lot of reshuffling done to cater for her.

Changes in the wind? Could there be some changes in the wind in the Pacific offices of the Asian Development Bank? WHISPERS hears there could be a changing of the guards in its Suva and Sydney offices. Both offices are currently being headed by women.

Farewell Rosita... Secretariat of the Pacific Comunity's information officer Rosita Hoffman is back in French Polynesia after a request from her government to take up a very senior government position within the President’s office. Good luck Rosita.

Fitness fanatics? Solomons’ MPs are now becoming very health conscious. Taiwan’s representative there donated fitness equipment to the parliamentarians to do regular exercises to help them work more efficiently and provide better services to their country.