Islands Business - Whispers

URWIN'S ROYAL treatment; TARO'S FISHING favours; KEMAKEZA'S hire and fire...

So what happened at PINA?

What's cooking? PINA's new president Ken Clark (left) with journalistsat last month's Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) convention inTonga. Photo: Courtesy of PINA.

#1: Crisis event? Some of the Pacific's journalists assembled in Tonga in November for the bi-annual Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) meeting. It was something of a crisis event since the affairs of the 20-year-old association had more than somewhat gone to the dogs. The AGM (annual general meeting) got an appalling report by an expert consultant detailing in awful detail why PINA had gone to the dogs. Yes, for all the same reasons that journalists love writing about as the cause of the affairs of various Pacific Islands governments going to the dogs. Ironic, eh? Anyway, PINA's new chair, Ken Clark, who has taken over as chief of PNG's EMTV after running Fiji TV, seems to be the sort of bloke able to lead a sort of RAMSI operation to avert PINA's collapse. The AGM was a politically charged one, we won't say racial, an “us versus them” one, with efforts being made to stave off the dominance of PINA by the Fiji gang by the kind of people who were perhaps the cause of PINA's sad state of affairs. The Samoan delegation, saying that its subscription (a year overdue) was on the way to the PINA account, announced it was quitting PINA because it was getting nothing out of it and hadn't heard from it for two years. That was strange since the outgoing PINA president was a Samoan. On second thoughts, the Samoans added, they'd given PINA another six months to prove itself.

#2 Janful's facade: The PINA meeting was held at Janful International Dateline Hotel. Janful is a Chinese company that bought 51% of the Dateline from the Tongan government, It put in a new wing and a frontal facade, and runs it in a fashion that caused a well-known travel guide to comment “to be avoided at all costs”. Behind the facade, parts of the old hotel molder, including some rooms. ISLANDS BUSINESS was put in a room it occupied more than 30 years ago. It hasn't changed. That's not all. The air conditioning remote control was in Chinese! Janful was lined up to take over the GPH in Suva but then pulled out of the deal for reasons not explained. Perhaps the GPH had a lucky escape.

#3 Urwin's royal treatment: Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Greg Urwin was the PINA meeting keynote speaker. One afternoon he was spotted marching across the foyer carrying a suitcase. “On the way to the airport, Greg?” Not at all. Someone had demanded his room (in the new wing). So the hotel turned one of the region's top VIPs out of it. He stood around the foyer for a while quite bemused, but when the hotel was coldly informed that PINA's guest was not the class of guest to be so treated, he was ushered back to it.

Kemakeza hire and fire: Can a Solomon Islands politician be likened to an albatross hung around someone's neck? As PM, Sir Allan Kemakeza judged it expedient to make Kuper, of the Association of Independent Members of Parliament (AIM), his “Special Secretary”.
According to the Solomon Star, Kuper, in an incident at the Honiara Hotel, allegedly assaulted a young woman, spilled beer in the hotel's reception area, and swore at staff, mostly women.

The Solomon Star also reported a violent incident at the Honiara Hotel involving Kuper. Opposition politicians told the newspaper they wanted Kuper axed from his job since if the PM had no trouble firing dissident cabinet ministers, he should have no trouble firing his special secretary.

Talking to the Solomon Star, the PM agreed that Kuper's behaviour had been “really bad”. He'd asked the head of his political unit, Sir George Lepping (a former governor-general) to investigate. Lepping told the Solomon Star that Kuper had uttered “very bad” words for which people they had been aimed at wanted compensation. Who would pay it? Kuper, AIM, or the government? That's a question the Solomon Star aimed to get an answer for.

Fishing favours: Solomon Islands fisheries minister Matthew Taro feels he's a harried man. He told the Solomon Star that he's fed up with being pestered practically everyday by businessmen out for fisheries favours. Taro, who took over the fisheries portfolio after his predecessor was sacked, declared: “I told them that I don't accept such bribes and I don't have the power to do it (fix things he's been invited to fix). I won't and I will not accept it.” Taro sounds like a modern Solomons hero. Some of his predecessors were notoriously easy catches for people wanting things fixed for fishing in one of the South Pacific's richest fisheries.

More on fishing: Seems that fishing licence revenue isn't the happy news it was for some countries that are heavily dependent on it. For some, what was counted in the millions has dropped to a few lousy hundreds of thousands. The explanation, explained one explainer, is that foreign fishing boats are moving to other EEZs to avoid the heavier costs of fishing in more distant waters. Some are moving out of fishing altogether. The trouble is the cost of diesel fuel. Two central Pacific countries hope to alleviate this trend by entering a deal with a big Taiwanese fishing company for the operation of longliner boats to operate from their territory. One hopeful hopes the deal will lead to the opening of a fishing base at an island where a wartime airstrip would be reopened as a facility for the fishermen, and perhaps leverage for someone's investment in a tourist resort.

Nauru torch hitch: For months and months the burning torched despatched from Britain personally by Queen Elizabeth has been carried tens of thousands of clicks by the most tortuous conceivable route so that it is moved through all the countries signed up for the Commonwealth Games in Australia, later this year. On arrival in Australia, after completing a round of the Pacific Islands, it will light the Games flame. So far, the torch's progress has gone without a hitch, almost. The whisper from Nauru is that the “almost” happened there. Several thousand Nauruans turned out to happily watch the torch being carried around their island without a hitch until it got to a sector passing a village that is the stronghold of a very recent ex- president. Evidently still brooding on his loss of power, the gentleman tried to block the torch's passage. An unseemly contretemps developed, much to the embarrassment of many Nauruans. The police were called in. Unawed by the posturing of the very recent former prez, they shoved him aside to allow the Games torch to progress.

Mirror, mirror on the wall: Papua New Guineans, who naturally regard PNG as the region's leader, like to snipe and sniff about coups in Fiji, which regards itself as the region's leader. Incidents like the famous Sandline affair and occasional upheavals, verging on mutinies at the PNG army barracks were just innocuous teacup storms, sceptics are assured. The Fijians can counter that they have better luck with their police force, headed by an Australian cop, who had engineered a huge lift of the force's morale, professionalism and efficiency. PNG's cops don't enjoy the esteem with which Fijians generally regard theirs. PNG Post Courier newspaper relates that since 1996 courts have awarded US$2 million in damage to people who have been bashed, shot (sometimes dead), had houses burnt down or who have otherwise suffered at the hands of the law. But that's chickenfeed compared to the estimated cost of compensation likely to flow from 3331 cases before the courts. It is worth 550 million Kina (US$189.8 million). A September incident in Port Moresby, when police blockaded the police college in support of a demand for the immediate payment of overtime, was followed in December by an incident at Kimbe, West New Britain. Armed with guns, 26 coppers drove in police vehicles to the provincial administration office, threatened staff and demanded immediate payment of 50,000 Kina for overtime they complained had been due since 2002. They were issued with a cheque drawn on non -police accounts.

GPH rebranded: After about 90 years of being the GPH (Grand Pacific Hotel), Suva's GPH is to be the GPCPS. It's going to be “re-branded” Grand Pacific Crowne Plaza Suva” after being fixed up and having a couple of new wings stuck on that will reflect “its former grandeur.” About F$40 million (US$23 million) will be spent on fixing the old pub up for future management by the Intercontinental Hotels Group, a British outfit that runs the Holiday Inn (ex-Travelodge) next door. Nauru bought the pub in the 1990s and had grand plans, but not the money for fixing it up. The pub closed and became a decaying eyesore, which brassed off the Fiji Government. It bought the place and transferred it to its investment arm, the Fiji Investment Corporation Ltd, which will fix it up in a joint venture with the Fiji National Provident Fund. Keep it dark, several private hotel developers have done sums and reckon turning that GPH into the GPCPS could become an investment the investors might regret.

Rossi for demolition? The Rossi Hotel waterfront bar may soon be no more. The building's owner has it up for sale and a prospective buyer may demolish it to make way for a quite different development, reports the Port Vila newspaper, The Independent.
For decades one of the delights of the South Pacific has been coffee and croissants consumed at 6 am on the verandah of the Rossi, overlooking the calm glass perfection of the harbour. The Rossi was opened as a simple hotel and pub by Agnes Reid. It later passed to the Rossi family who gave it the name. No longer a hotel, the restaurant has survived by dint of superb location and wonderful food, however. The Rossi was due to shut down on December 12.