Nakelo men revive old meke

* Islands Business Exclusive

"The meke, performed only by men and held in high regard by the villagers, is called: 'Maravu Levu', which literally translates to mean: 'The Great Calm', but in the context of this dance is the name of a so-called 'waqa ni meke' or 'the ship that carries dances'"

by Dionisia Tabureguci
Thu, 5 Oct 2006

SUVA, FIJI ---- Spectators at the official opening night of the 3rd Melanesian Arts and Cultural Festival were treated to a rare performance of an over 70 year old meke (dance) by an 80-member group from Nakelo village in the province of Tailevu, central Viti Levu.

The meke, performed only by men and held in high regard by the villagers, is called: “Maravu Levu”, which literally translates to mean: “The Great Calm”, but in the context of this dance is the name of a so-called “waqa ni meke” or “the ship that carries dances”.



The dance is of historic significance which the village elders recall as being the meke composed and performed initially for the Duke of Gloucester, the late Prince Henry William , when he visited Fiji in the 1930s.

...Nakelo men performing 'Maravu Levu'.

Village elder Necani Mate is a grandson of one of the composers and explained that this meke is significant because it was composed with the help of the “other side” or the spirit world, at a time when all of Fiji had supposedly subscribed to Christianity.

“The Duke of Gloucester was the first member of the Royal Family (of Great Britain) to set foot on our shores and while all the preparations were being made, the one thing missing was a meke. The governor sought the assistance of the then Vunivalu and Tui Kaba, Ratu Popi Seniloli, to help find a meke for the entertainment of the Duke of Gloucester.” The title of Vunivalu and Tui Kaba are conferred to the high chiefs of Bau island, traditionally the seat of power over the province of Tailevu. The bearers of the titles commanded great respect from areas in Fiji that had political alliances with the islet in pre-Christianity Fiji. This link is still acknowledged today.

“Ratu Popi decided to ask the Tui Nakelo (high chief of Nakelo) for a meke and this was how it became a task during my grandfather’s time for a meke to be composed to entertain the visiting royalty,” said Mate.

He said the composers had run out of ideas so they decided to ask the spirit world for guidance. To achieve this, they performed a sacred ritual to the “other side” which resulted in the “sighting” of the “Maravu Levu”, a seven-decked ship in the Ocean of the Spirit World that supposedly carries “all the dances in the world”. “The captain of the ship told our elders that the ship had run out of dances and the only one left was the dance that tells the story about the ship itself. And this was how this meke made its way into this world,” Mate related.

The unique thing about this dance, he added, was that it could not be performed by people from other parts of the country as the choreography of movements is very complex and is only known by its Nakelo guardians.

“Other areas work on body movements. This meke works on feet movements.

One wrong move and the dancers could be clubbing each other instead,” Mate winked.











...village elder Necani Mate.



The actual performance, said the village elder, is supposed to reflect every aspect of the ship as it sails through the waters of the Spirit World and this was the reason why there are seven traditional dance accessories being used by the seven subgroups of dancers where each subgroup represents a part of the vessel.

Mate said a “full-strength” dance would have to feature 1200-men as this would enable a “reconstruction” of Maravu Levu in its entirety. But this, he stressed, has never been witnessed by anyone as it has never been performed before.
“The one that was danced for the Duke of Gloucester was made up of 800-men and even that has not been repeated because there are not enough people. I must say that the complete set of seven major movements have never been performed before.”
Mate said if the Maravu Levu was performed in its entirety, it would take over an hour.

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NOTE: This article was published on Islands Business on-line (www.islandsbusiness.com) as: "Nakelo Men revive old meke.”
Date of on-line edition: Thursday October 5, 2006.
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ANZ’s new Pacific chief confident in regional economies

“We have made much progress but progress to us here at ANZ is not just how many accounts we have opened nor how much people have saved with us. It is more a question about how we are contributing, how we are helping to unlock the potential in rural areas of the Pacific and whether we are making a real difference to the lives of the people we provide bank accounts and other services to.” 

- Mike Guerin, new managing director of ANZ's Pacific operation.


by Dionisia Tabureguci

PACIFIC island countries are going to see more of the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group as it continues to make its presence felt in the region.

The new managing director of its Pacific operations Mike Guerin said the bank has a number of plans geared towards extending its reach in the region further than the 10 countries that it operates in. 

“I believe ANZ can contribute to the local economies by providing international expertise and knowledge transfer, building local employment opportunities and international career options for Pacific islanders and by ensuring ANZ maintains and grows points of representation throughout the Pacific,” said Guerin in an interview with Islands Business Magazine.

ANZ, the fourth largest bank in Australia, has presence in Vanuatu, Tonga, Timor Letse, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Kiribiati, Fiji, Cook Island, American Samoa, together contributing over A$100 million a year to the Group’s financial results.

In return, ANZ has been a major player in financing businesses in the region as well as making available financial services to the rural communities through its rural banking partnership with the United Nations Development Programme.

Guerin said the bank has an obligation to be an even greater contributor to innovation, employment, investment, increased productivity and community support across the region. “We need to better structure our business to strengthen organic growth and support inorganic growth opportunities. I see a need for greater specialisation and an even stronger focus on our customers and building on our customer value proposition,” he said.

Being a large business in the region also comes with certain responsibilities and in the past, banks have come under fire, accused of directing funds only to sectors that are doing well and lessening their exposure to suspect sectors in order to save their skins.

An example is the Agriculture sector in Fiji in the last five years when the sugar industry began to go down. The decline was reflected in the drop in commercial banks lending to the sugarcane-growing business, which decreased from over F$85 million in 1994 to F$14.9 million in 2001 to F$4.7 million in 2005, according to Reserve Bank of Fiji statistics.

Guerin offered a bank’s perspective on this. “Fiji’s sugar industry is presently going through some changes designed to better position itself for future prosperity,” he said. “Prudent management of their debt levels and repayment obligations is important to industry participants while they seek to place the industry on a stronger footing. One of our obligations is to ensure we not lend money to people and industries where resultant repayment obligations will further stifle their ability to remain viable,” he added. The bank believes its role in stimulating activities in the rural areas is being delivered in a more holistic way.

An example of this, Guerin said, is the ANZ-UNDP rural banking partnership, designed to benefit rural dwellers and not just those involved in agriculture.

The project, piloted in Fiji, is now made available in Samoa, Tonga, American Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands.

To date, the project has opened over 60,000 accounts and mobilised over AUD$3 million.

“We have made much progress but progress to us here at ANZ is not just how many accounts we have opened nor how much people have saved with us. It is more a question about how we are contributing, how we are helping to unlock the potential in rural areas of the Pacific and whether we are making a real difference to the lives of the people we provide bank accounts and other services to,” said Guerin. “

People now have a safe place to save with a bank that comes to them, they are able to borrow at competitive interest rates to improve their homes, start small businesses or purchase a truck for their village. Parents are able to save for school fees, pensioners in rural areas now don’t have to spend most of their monthly benefit on paying for transport to town and most people have enough savings to get them through an unexpected natural disaster,” Guerin added. 

He said the bank’s Pacific operation would be using the rural banking project to expand its lending to agriculture.

“The future will see ANZ continue to expand into new countries; develop new products and services to ensure we keep up with the needs of our customers and partner with new organizations and increase the availability of banking services in rural areas. Financial literacy and our partnership with UNDP will remain a cornerstone to all future developments.”

Overall, the bank sees opportunities across the board and would be strengthening its focus on specialisation, with tourism being an industry high on its priority list.

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NOTE: This article appeared as: “TOURISM HIGH ON BANK’S PRIORITY LIST”…Guerin has plans to extend ANZ’s reach; pp 42,43, November 2006 edition.

Islands Business is the flagship publication of Islands Business International.

In this blog, picture of Mike Guerin in a press conference in Suva supplied by ANZ Fiji.

Interim government investigates “new information” in mine deal

Rehab Deed for mine sale delayed

By Dionisia Tabureguci

FIJI’s interim government has deliberately delayed the signing of the Deed of Rehabilitation for the sale of Emperor Gold Mine (EGM) in Vatukoula because of what it says are “new information” that it has begun to investigate.

As corporate announcements in Australia allude to the completion of the sale process between Emperor Mines Ltd (EML), the ASX-listed owner of EGM, and Westech Gold Pty Ltd, a private company in Australia headed by former EGM engineering consultant Brian Wesson, Fiji’s interim attorney general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has confirmed to Fiji Business magazine that “certain matters have come to light and which we are in the process of investigating and verifying”. Saiyed-Khaiyum chose not to elaborate on what these “certain matters” may be but gave indication that a decision may be reached by the end of the week (end of March).

“I can assure you that the decision made will be in the interest of the community in Vatukoula and also in the interest of the nation,” he said.

It is understood the signing was to have taken place on March 20, 2007 with all parties on standby but this did not eventuate because the AG had not given approval.

Ever since EML’s announcement in December last year that it will close down its Vatukoula mines, questions have been raised by industry experts and representatives of the affected Vatukoula community regarding various events that transpired afterwards, including the sale of the mine to Westech, an Australian incorporated company whose owners have been quoted as associating it more to power production than gold mining.

In particular, questions have been raised on the background and backers of Westech Gold Pty, given that it was only registered with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission in February this year.

“This should raise some serious questions about the authenticity of the whole deal,” said a concerned source, familiar with the operations at Vatukoula.

“Given that (Westech Gold) was only registered in the past month, the company cannot have any asset and I simply cannot believe that the Fiji government will allow the sale of the company (EGM) with $15 million in liabilities to a company with no asset. What nonsense is this?”

In a series of correspondence with Fiji Business magazine, the source has joined other industry observers in expressing reservation about the deal, which they view with deep suspicion as being created to allow Emperor Mines Ltd to get out of its financial, social and environmental obligations at Vatukoula.

Further criticisms were levelled at the nature of the transaction, which involved no actual purchase but simply a transfer of shares from Emperor’s companies that own the Fijian assets - along with the liabilities – to Westech Gold.

This disposal has in turn given much relief to EML’s major shareholder, South African owned Durban Rooderpoort Deep Ltd (DRD) who has been moving to improve upon its battered share price performance by cutting down its losses, contributed mainly by the estranged Vatukoula operation. DRD had also made known its plans to sell its interests in Porgera and Tolukuma gold mines in Papua New Guinea and to undertake a major restructure and share consolidation. The complete disappearance of Vatukoula and associated liabilities from its books has given the miner much room to move with its restructure plans and has also returned some investor confidence with its share price having recovered overnight on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

But what it has left behind in Fiji is a long list of unanswered questions and concerns about the new owner of the Vatukoula gold mine, the expertise that it seem to lack and the financial position that not many are aware of.

Another commentator to this magazine noted how the new owner expressed optimism in restarting Vatukoula, which he believes is already a dying operation.

“Restarting sunset mines is always difficult,” he said. “For such a mine, the finding of a new and higher grade orebody system is usually what is required to revive it from its natural death and this upside potential was not there when EML decided to sell Vatukoula. I doubt very much that there is an upside to EGM because of lack of viable resources to kick start mining operations and the 4million ounce resource infers total resource…what is more critical is how much of this total resource is categorised as being amenable to mining.”

Representatives of the gold mining community have also expressed their concerns. In an open letter to Fiji’s interim government last month, the representatives urged the interim administration to intervene in the ownership transfer of the Vatukoula gold mine.

The list of issues that EML has left behind and which workers reps are not sure how the new owner proposes to deal with, relate to: the recently redundant December 5th 2006 workers, the stranded 500 or so subcontractor employees, unresolved disputes like the 1991 strikers and workmen compensation issues, landowners and historical land claimants, environmental concerns both within and downstream communities, women, children and other groups affected by the Vatukoula mine closure.

“Government should assure the people of Vatukoula that all these obligations will be taken care of, by whom and when before it concludes negotiations with the two companies Emperor and Westech,” they said.

Footnote:

Who is Brian Wesson?

Brian Wesson is the owner of Westech International, the company that has been associated with the transfer of ownership of EML’s Fiji operation to Westech Gold Pty Ltd, a company that only got incorporated in February 2007. 

Prior to moving into this major undertaking, Wesson was chief engineer at Vatukoula in 1993 where he spent 11 years. An electrical engineer with over 30 years experience in the resource and energy sectors, Wesson started his career with Rand Mines in South Africa in 1980 in the electrical department of the Harmony Gold Mine. He was transferred to East Rand Propriety Mines as sectional resident engineer in 1982 and was moved to Durban Rooderpoort Deep in 1989.

On September 19, 2006, Wesson was appointed a non-executive director of ElDore Mining Corporation Ltd, an Australian mineral exploration company that recently acquired Robust Mines Ltd in Fiji. Robust Mines Ltd has exploration properties in Waimanu in Colo-i-Suva, Buca (Dakuniba) and Vatukoula South West.

Wesson’s resignation from ElDore was announced on ASX on January 29, 2007. Wesson emerged again in mid-March when EML announced it was selling EGM to Westech International. The press reported Wesson and his wife Amelia as directors of Westech International.

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NOTE: This article was published in the Fiji Business Magazine as: "New information prompts govt to delay gold signing. AG Sayed-Khaiyum: 'We're in the process of investigating and verifying'", pp 5,6, April 2007 edition.

Fiji Business is a publication in the Islands Business International portfolio and sold only in the Fiji islands as an accompaniment to Islands Business Magazine.

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Will Datec Crumble?

SAP enters Fiji's software market through Pacific Connex but Datec Fiji is not batting an eyelid

by Dionisia Tabureguci

DEPENDING on who you’re talking to in Fiji’s software industry, there are varied views on the advent of SAP business solutions to our shores but if there is a common ground, it has to be the growing perception that this Johnny-come-lately is a harbringer of changes never seen before in the market.

There are those who prophesy the demise of a certain major reseller, those who believe in the possible transformation of the smaller software companies, the shift to oblivion of those not receptive to the anticipated changes forecasted for the industry and most will nod emphatically as if it is a kind of vindication that, yes indeed, SAP will be something of a reckoning for a lot of people.

In a country where your average day to day person does not know so much about computers, let alone talk software, it is not surprising that the word SAP has become coined with the Native Land Trust Board, PacificConnex Ltd and the Fiji-born now New Zealand citizen Ballu Khan.

When you begin talking to a fellow who says something like: “Yes, SAP is THE software. It’s Tier One. It’s Fortune 500. It is one of the best you can get if you’re a big company…”, you are talking to someone either in the business of selling software or is providing support services to those who buy them.

For a fact, the name SAP is closely linked to huge multinational corporations on Wall Street, the kind that have offices all over the world and that do billions of dollars worth of turnover each year, making it imperative for them to use a software designed to handle the resulting complexity of the massive business.

In that fast paced environment, SAP is known as one of the Big Three, that term referring to the three ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software vendors whose products compete for the attention of these very big companies (the other two are Oracle and PeopleSoft).

Early this year, it became known that the brand was coming to Fiji via PacificConnex Ltd, a new joint venture between Khan and NLTB’s investment arm Vanua Development Corporation.

One could almost hear the silence of the industry as it braced itself for what it expected were changes but which it did not quite know what they were or what shape they would configure the market to.

Then the NLTB proudly announced it was awarding PacificConnex the job of putting in place the IT infrastructure for its business, core of which are granting leases and collecting rent monies for distribution to the indigenous landowners.

That was when the panic attack began for the one other company that those in the know were expecting would recoil and go running back to the boardroom for a Plan B.

Officially, Datec Fiji Ltd did not make a sound. But its major shareholder Jim Ah Koy did.

As former finance minister responsible for bringing in SAP for implementation by the Rabuka government in 1998 – this was following a report on the Government’s IT needs compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm that also ran a consulting arm for SAP in Australia - Ah Koy knew a fair bit about the software and warned NLTB that it would ‘bleed to death’ from choosing to run its business using SAP.

From experience, Ah Koy knew it was complex and expensive if one was looking at returns on investments . When it was scrapped in 1999, that SAP solution had already cost that government close to $10 million . 

And until today, the software has not been implemented.

Now apparently wiser, Ah Koy decided to take on an advisory role admonishing NLTB that it will lose more than it expected to gain.

Did Ah Koy’s seemingly anxious reaction point to a certain wariness in the Datec camp?

“Not one bit,” said its manager professional services Rahul Ganatra. He sat comfortably in the boardroom alongside the cool and composed managing director Krishna Sami.

Datec is apparently unfazed by all this SAP talk. If Khan had thought competing against something like SAP would be a ‘daunting task’, the only other company big enough to fit the bill as a competitor would be Datec Fiji and there it was wishing PacificConnex and Khan the very best.

“Bringing SAP here is like buying a plane and using it to travel from home to the office. Would you buy a plane or would you settle for a car? That is what this situation is about – SAP is too expensive and too complex it’s like buying a plane when what suits your need is just a car,” said Ganatra.

That was an echo of a remark made by the head of a smaller software solutions company who likened the situation to someone buying a limousine for driving along the backroads of Fiji.

“It is no doubt the world’s best enterprise-wide financial software but the question is: do we really need something that big and sophisticated for the size of businesses we have in Fiji,” he had alluded to NLTB’s decision to choose SAP.

According to Khan, the NLTB would be using mySAP Business Suite which is designed for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

That seemed to mystify the local software expert who further questioned the logic in bringing in a product that would cost $1.2 million each year for 12 years to support.

“If what they’re giving NLTB is an SME package and it has to pay in millions every year, what company in Fiji would spend like that on software? For the size and complexity of NLTB, you can easily get a solution already in the market which can handle it for much cheaper , “he said.

At the Datec boardroom, Ganatra was ready with a list of multinational companies that had implemented an SAP solution and threw it out because it was too costly to run.

While many in the industry were speculating on a possible Datec run for the money move, Datec made clear it was doing nothing of the sort and would rather wait to see “SAP cut to size in the Fiji market”.

For those thinking there may be a possible partnership between PacificConnex and Datec, both parties have indicated an openness to talk but no one has made a move.

Such a partnership, said Khan, would have to be in Datec supplying the hardware for all PacificConnex jobs. After all, there is a business partnership between the computer hardware company IBM and SAP in the global market. In Fiji, Datec is the sole supplier of IBM computers. Khan is open for talks on this aspect but Datec is sceptical about it and thinks it is a way for Khan to get Datec to start rooting for SAP.

“We think SAP is not suitable for Fiji and we would never recommend it to any business here, not even to the Government” said Sami.

“When you talk SAP in those big economies, you’re talking billions of dollars turnover so it is logical for them. Our GDP (Gross Domestic Product)as a country is so small compared to that and we don’t need to spend so much money on such a complex software,” added Ganatra.

Datec obviously has anchored its confidence in its established market position, a good client base and its understanding of the Fiji market. Already, it is viewing its own strength as PacificConnex’s weaknesses.

“A few years from now, somebody is going to get burned from this and that is when they will understand that you don’t need to spend so much on such a software when you can get something for far less the cost and which does the same thing,” Ganatra said.

“It’s not going to be that simple so watch that space,” he smiled.

The train of thoughts in the other camp heads in a different direction. Khan is busy holding marketing conferences in Suva and Nadi, talking to around 15 companies and putting together proposals . Not to mention getting in Auckland Blues star player Carlos Spencer to incarnate the potential in PacificConnex and how a business could tap it.

The fundamental strength behind Khan’s aggressive marketing is his own experience and that of the PacificConnex team with SAP-based solutions. True the complexity thing has been tossed around but to Khan, it is really a state of mind.

“SAP is a business software. It is reasonably as simple or as complex as you want it to be but those are not software issues. They are management issues,” he reasoned.

Fiji, it seems, is ready for SAP. In fact, it has been long overdue , according to Khan. He believes the Fiji market is starving for quality world-class business solutions that reflect the technological advances already made in this industry.

But the might of SAP is only fully comprehended by those who have worked it into the landscape of a business and in doing so, have transformed that entity.

Described as fully-integrated, highly effective software that covers all vertical aspects of more than 22 different industries, SAP is being pushed here by Khan not just as a software for handling a business but a tool that may be used to ‘transform’ the business and take it to another level.

That, he believes, is where the market will ultimately be forced to make up its mind. Those wishing to transform are going to find PCX’s SAP product worth the investment while those wanting only to streamline and keep it simple will have to settle for something else.

Clearly, it is now up to the market to decide whether or not SAP is welcome or whether it will be written off again as a complex, daunting and expensive exercise that was never suitable here in the first place.

Both sides agree that only time will tell.

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NOTE: This article was published in the Fiji Business Magazine as: Could SAP change the way we do business? Local software industry adopts a wait-and-see approach; pp 8,9, July 2004 edition.

Fiji Business is a publication in the Islands Business International portfolio and sold only in the Fiji islands as an accompaniment to Islands Business Magazine.

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Rick Hou sure of Solomon Islands economy

by Dionisia Tabureguci
photo of Rick Hou supplied by Central Bank of Solomon Islands


WHEN the century turned in 2000, so did the social and political matrix of a few countries in the Pacific islands. While nations like Samoa and Cook Islands were earnestly mending the nets of their economies to better their prospects, others like Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands were going the other way. In particular, the meltdown of Solomon Islands towards the end of the 1990s is well documented as being linked to land-related tension between native Guadalcanal islanders and neighbouring Malaitans.
The reign of the Isatabu Freedom Movement, a group that comprised Guadalcanal islanders, saw the attacks and subsequent displacement of Malaitan settlers on Guadalcanal, finally erupting into a takeover of Honiara and Bartholomew Ulufa’alu’s government in 2000 by armed militants that belonged to the Malaita Eagle Force.
Continued standoffs resulted in the occupation of Solomon Islands by the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) in 2003. Law and order were gradually restored and economic rebuilding began.
In those trying times, one institution that held fast to its mandate was the Central Bank of the Solomon Islands. With governor Rick Hou at the helm, the country’s economy began a slow but steady climb back to normalcy. In April this year, Solomon Islands held its first national elections since the ethnic tension.
However, the newly elected government and its prime minister drew a violent public outcry after being accused of corrupt collaboration with Asian businesspeople.
Rioters burned and looted Chinatown, a commercial section in the capital Honiara run by Asian businesspeople. While this did put a dent to progress made in rebuilding the economy, Hou remained optimistic that the country will not suffer. In an interview with ISLANDS BUSINESS Magazine, he spoke of an economy that is faced with other major challenges.


INTERVIEW

IB: You were optimistic about the Solomon Island economy before the April riot. Do you still feel that way?

Hou: Oh yes. I am still optimistic. Last year, the economy turned a 5 percent growth and our forecast this year is 6 percent. Given the persistence of the trend that we saw happening most of last year, indications are that the trend will continue so we will keep our growth forecast for this year and last year. We will not review them.


IB: So the April riot is not going to be affecting the economy so much. How is that?

Hou: Our assessment is that there is not a lot of impact in the short term. We looked at the government revenue side and felt there would not be a lot of impact there. I guess the areas where we will have negative impact are in security, property rights and investment confidence. The riot came at a very bad time when we were trying very hard to rebuild confidence and it is not a good thing to happen at a time when we are doing this. So I think we will have to work very hard again to convince not only our own people here but also most overseas investors to invest.


IB: What then has been the driver of Solomon Island’s economic growth?

Hou: Last year, the main drivers of the economy were construction, utilities and distribution or wholesale activities. That one has dramatically gone up.


IB: Is this because of RAMSI?

Hou: I think so. But generally, the economy is picking up, especially the construction sector. There’s a lot of construction going on…roads, bridges, buildings. But along with that, consumption has also gone up really dramatically.


IB: RAMSI, we have been told, will extend its stay in the Solomon Islands. How do you see that in relation to the country trying to put forth a good image for investment?

Hou: You ask the ordinary man on the street about the presence of RAMSI and they will tell you that, yes, we need RAMSI. I guess the feeling of normal Solomon Islanders here is that our institutions are still fragile and there is still a need to get on top of the issue of law and order. Our government departments need to be sorted out. So there is a lot of need for institutional building, training, skills upgrade…these are all happening at this time and I think it is not going to be a short-term thing.
I also believe that these are areas where RAMSI’s input should be - in building our confidence in our institutions and that our own people can manage them, for example, the government department, finance. I guess it is in the rebuilding process where we will need RAMSI to help us in. So I think the extension of RAMSI will be positive there. But I think what RAMSI should be careful of is giving an impression that it can fix everything because it cannot.


IB: You were saying that there is a need for rebuilding and strengthening institutions. What is the situation right now?

Hou: Yes, there is that great need. Look at our police force for instance. It was badly affected during the ethnic tension. We had officers who were taking sides and as a result, the integrity of the police force was badly affected by the ethnic tension. We are now in the process of re-recruiting and retraining and in the process, we hope that the confidence that the public has in the police force will return. At the moment, it is still doubtful. So our police force is one institution that needs to be upgraded in terms of the confidence that people have in it, that it can really enforce the law. Other institutions like government departments; well, some of them are doing very well because of RAMSI’s presence in them, for example the Ministry of Finance and Treasury. They have people in there who are looking after things, for example, in treasury, things are now under control as far as government finance goes. Now they are going to have local counterparts to understudy the overseas RAMSI officials that are occupying positions there. Good things are also already happening in the judiciary. Much improvement is needed in other areas like the utilities. Our electricity and water supplies are very weak at the moment. Also in the areas of good governance, we are very weak here in the Solomon Islands so we need to revamp the governance aspect of our all institutions, whether in government, semi-government or those in the private sector.


IB: And then there is the issue of corruption…

Hou: Yes, there is a fair bit of that still happening and this is because of the absence of governance principles, rules and regulations. Some people tend to interpret rules and regulations according to how it is convenient for them and in some institutions, the checks and balances are still not there. One of the things that people have been urging RAMSI and government to do is to bring to account any corruption cases. There are a lot of speculations and allegations going on but nothing has really come to the front to prove that corruption has taken place. People have been terminated and sacked as a result of allegations for corruption and in the last government, ministers were sacked left right and centre but I don’t think there has been any case where the court has sent people to jail for their involvement in corruption.


IB: You were talking about the problems of over-logging. How much of a threat is that to your economy in your effort to gain from your natural resources?

Hou: I have three concerns when it comes to logging. The first concern is that of the environmental damage that logging is causing to our country. I am not sure about the management practices that logging operators apply in the forests. I can only see it in my own local area where – I mean I know very little about forest management - but all I know is that rivers are not flowing and what you have in the lagoon is mud and that’s all I see. So definitely, some environmental concern is there. The other concern I have is: what will happen when we run out of trees? According to the forestry experts at the Forestry department, we will run out of trees in six years’ time if we keep cutting at the rate we are cutting. Six years is not a long time and that is where my third concern is, when we will be looking for something to fill this gap.
Sadly for us, logging has now become the mainstay in terms of foreign exchange and in terms of our exports as it accounts for almost 60 percent of our exports. In terms of our exports, logs is one of our few exports and it account for more than 50 percent of our exports. It is also an important government revenue – it accounts for more than 30 percent of government revenue so it is a very important commodity at the moment. My concern is: what will happen in six years’ time?
The third concern that I have is really a question that I have been raising for a number of years that I just have this gut feeling that the local economy is not getting maximum benefits out of logs. Yes I mentioned that it is the leading export earner for us but it could be more. I am not sure about the prices that we are getting out of our logs because we do have very valuable trees here. I am not sure about the value we are getting for our exports and the value we are getting in terms of our import duties because for a number of years, these logging activities have enjoyed a lot of exemptions. I am also overly concerned about the resource owners. I am not sure whether they are getting any benefits out of this. I have my doubts.


IB: So this is mostly the private companies who are here to do logging?

Hou: At first it used to be foreign companies who come in here to do logging. The license allowed you to do logging and give you a quota, which allows you to log a certain cubic meter of logs. In the last few years, the government had moderated that project. What it did was gave resource owners the license and, in theory, these resource owners and landowners would own and run the logging operation. However, things did not happen that way. The thing that is happening now is the landowner or the license holder, usually goes out in search for a foreign company to operate the logging operations. And there’s very little government involvement in the negotiation process. And this is where I see the landowners losing. For example where I come from, some of the landowners are getting SB$40 (US$5.20 per cubic meter) and I am not sure if the landowners know exactly that they are getting the wrong end of the stick.


IB: Isn’t there a mechanism or process in place that will take care of the marketing of this commodity?

Hou: There have been suggestions and discussions and proposals on this but unfortunately the way the whole process has been managed is so murky and disorganised that everyone is doing their own thing. And as long as you can get a license, a concession and landowner agreement, you go ahead and log. At the end of the day, I think the landowners are the ones who are losing out the most.


IB: Solomon Island’s foreign reserves situation looks attractive with an average seven months import cover, mostly from aid monies as you’ve mentioned. Would you expect this situation to continue in the immediate future?

Hou: Solomon Island’s external reserves position has been relatively high since 2004. In fact, over the last 18 months, the foreign reserves represent an average of six months of import cover. This is quite an achievement given that the Solomon Island’s external reserves have, historically speaking, been always below three months of import cover. So for the moment, our external position could not be better. We are very mindful however, that much of this was derived from donor assistance and other RAMSI related activities in the Solomon islands. However, since last year, we have seen some improvement in long-term sustainable sources of foreign exchange, for example in exports and foreign direct investment. I believe the favourable situation would continue for some time yet. Much of the economic reforms and physical infrastructure rehabilitation work has barely started and hence with government commitment and donor assistance, it should still continue for the foreseeable future. These reforms and the rehabilitation process will take time and commitment, but when pursued consistently, economic activity is expected to pick up further.


IB: Inflation is at around 10 percent. Could the economy sustain such high rates and what is being done to mitigate inflationary pressures?

Hou: Historically, double-digit inflation is not new to the Solomon Islands. However in the last two years, it has been maintained in single digits. More recent numbers released by the Statistics department show inflation has declined to 8.5 percent by the end of 2005. This is within the central bank’s policy objective, which is to keep inflation below 10 percent per annum. Prolonged inflation of over 10 percent would pose a threat to economic growth. Current monetary conditions however pose potential risks to this policy objective. The banking system is highly liquid and the government has built substantial deposits with the banking system. Higher oil prices, accelerated lending by commercial banks, a draw down of government balances and the RAMSI spending could all add to inflationary pressures. In a small open economy like the Solomon Islands, price stability is vulnerable to all these movements. The previous government had acted sensibly and responsibly to help ease this pressure and the new government should do the same. The central bank is poised to take appropriate action to lessen any inflationary pressure by mopping up excess liquidity to influence domestic credit growth. We may also use administrative measures where necessary and of course, use moral suasion. We do however encourage financial institutions to provide greater access to financial services in the rural areas.


IB: What about exports, how is that faring?

Hou: Solomon Island’s export base is very narrow and is mainly in raw materials. Production levels of our main commodities – round logs, fish, copra and cocoa – have rebounded since the restoration of law and order. Log production has been running at record high, although unsustainable, levels. Production levels in other commodities are already close to pre-crisis levels. There is still capacity to increase production and to broaden the economic base. The Oil Palm project, which has been taken over by a PNG-based investor, is expected to start production this year. Given the high level of interest in this commodity, it may in future become a major source of employment, foreign exchange and general economic activity for the Solomons. In the mineral sector, although its production schedule has been pushed back by about a year, plans to restart the Gold Ridge mine is already a source of confidence building.


IB: What is your view on the progress of the global economy and how Solomon Island’s economy can benefit from it?

Hou: The positive growth indications in the global economy are encouraging as it will be helpful to us. More particularly in Japan and some of the Asian countries, which are important destinations for our exports, we are hopeful that these positive trends will continue. However, the consistent rise in oil prices will seriously undermine these hopes. For Solomon Islands, oil accounts for about 40 percent of our total imports and is an important component in local production. The increasing oil price therefore poses potential risks to this positive outlook. And for a small open economy like Solomon Islands, we are extremely vulnerable.

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NOTE: This is the original transcript of a Rick Hou interview, published in the Islands Business Magazine as: Interview: Rick Hou, GOVERNOR OF THE CENTRAL BANK OF SOLOMON ISLANDS, pp 34,35, September 2006 edition.

Islands Business is the flagship publication of Islands Business International.
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Training top on APP agenda

Association of Pacific Ports consolidate through new secretariat

by Dionisia Tabureguci


TRAINING of management level personnel is top on the agenda for the South Pacific Community’s Regional Maritime Programme (SPCRMP), the new secretariat of the Association of Pacific Ports (APP).
It takes over from the Ports Authority of Fiji (now Fiji Ports Corporation Ltd) and was formally handed the function in the signing on a Memorandum of Understanding between SPCRMP and APP during the latter’s 31st annual conference held in Fiji last month.
SPCRMP’s maritime ports security officer Timoci Tamani said the move should go a long way in helping the organization to realise its goals by virtue of SCRMP’s expertise and the network that it has already established in the regional maritime industry.
“In the past years, the APP secretariat had been taken up by Fiji on a volunteer basis so all the expenses and everything related to the secretariat was borne by Fiji all along. And because there was no full time person responsible for that role, most of the activities that APP did or would have liked to put in place were not done. In essence, everything just went to sleep as those tasked with doing the secretariat’s job had their own responsibilities with FPCL,” said Tamani.
It was only logical, he added, that the role be transferred to SPCRMP, a programme that comes under SPC’s Marine Resources Division.

More important are the two key components of this programme which include the provision of legal advice on maritime policy and legislation as well as the provision of training to maritime administrations, training institutions and seafarers throughout the region to bring their operations into line with international codes and conventions.
Now with the two organizations in direct alignment with each other, what has been envisaged is “the strengthening of APP as a formidable lobby group in the Pacific with SPCRMP harnessing the power base of its members to take up regional issues collectively with the objective of bringing about awareness and proactive change to the Port industry.”
That is a key, although long-term goal. A more immediate issue that APP is faced with, according Tamani, is the lack of formal training for port workers and this is what the new secretariat will set out to do first.
“We have a F$500,000 grant from China for port development for the next five years and we will be using it for training. We are already lining up target recipients for that,” said Tamani “We think we will spend all that amount within two or three years because of the need that is there.”
Also under discussion is a proposed Degree level course at the University of the South Pacific to treat the subject of maritime transport management, in a bid to inject a more serious tone into the port business.

“The course will be for the shipping industry – for the ports, shipping and movement of cargo. There is not a place in Fiji where one can go to and do those courses so we are talking with USP it already has campuses around the region. Last year, we held discussions with people in the port industry and as a result, we saw that there was a need for such a course. Many people working in the port industry are experienced workers but very few have proper qualifications because the courses are only available overseas,” said Tamani. “We are proposing with USP for this course to come under its School of Marine Studies and we hope that it will start by next year.”
With an expanding and what is now becoming a more sophisticated port business in the region, the APP conference ended with the views that the need for training is crucial.
Also on its agenda - and which the secretariat will be expected to play an important role in – is to get governments in the Pacific to recognize the importance of their port business to their economy.
“We are all island countries and we depend on a large degree on seaports for our external and internal trade. But the emphasis seems to be on tourism and air traffic,” commented Herbert Hazelman, executive president of APP. “We feel that Pacific island ministers and governments should give seaports and the maritime industry more recognition. Give it the recognition that it deserves because we are island nations and all we do is rely on the sea for the transfer of 95 percent of our trade and the majority of our population between the islands.”

After its symposium, APP presented its list of issues to the meeting of ports chief executive officers also held in Suva on the same week.
“We did a one hour presentation and it was well received. Hopefully, there would be some changes in attitude by governments in the Pacific in that they give due recognition to ports as a major player within the economies of island countries.”
Hazelman said most of the issues common to all ports in the region are pollution, the presence of derelicts and the lack of a formal training programme for land-based port management.
“With SPC’s involvement, we will hopefully be able to push our agenda up there to be recognized alongside air transport, tourism and the rest of it,” he added.
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NOTE: This article was written after coverage of the 31st Annual conference for the Association of Pacific Ports (APP), held at the Fiji Ports Corporation Limited's HQ, Kaunikuila House, at Flagstaff Suva, Fiji from June 04 to June 7, 2006.
The article was published in the Islands Business Magazine as: TRAINING TOP ON APP AGENDA, Bringing port operations into line, p37, December 2006 edition.

Islands Business is the flagship publication of Islands Business International.
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Vodafone Fiji upgrades to 3G

But where is the ISP license?

by Dionisia Tabureguci

IS FIJI's Internet Service Provider market really deregulated or is it still showing signs of a hallucinating monopoly haunting the living daylights out of existing and potential newcomers?
One must not ask Lionel Yee a question even closely resembling that because he will only politely direct your attention – and in a very rhetorical way - to the decision made by that previous government which chose the model of deregulation for Fiji’s telecommunication industry.
As chief executive officer of Amalgamated Telecom Holdings (ATH), holding company of Telecom Fiji Limited (TFL) which is the majority shareholder in Vodafone Fiji, Yee is often heard to express to the media how peeved the conglomerate is at the way the telecommunication industry had been handled and how short people’s memory seemed to be when it came to acknowledging that.
If ATH has become a beast that people love to hate, then the beast was created not by its management, but by past decisions that loiter around like a bad smell that wouldn’t go away.
“We didn’t get into this space for free,” says the veteran corporate manager who is also chairman of the Vodafone Fiji board. Yee’s foray into telecommunication began immediately after the Fiji National Provident Fund bought 49 percent of ATH from the Fiji government in 1998. He had taken over the role of ATH CEO after serving at the top management level of the pension fund for a number of years.
“We paid close to F$250 million for this and don’t forget, part of the agreement when we bought it was that we have five years of status quo. But we never had one minute of peaceful existence. Every five seconds, we have people trying to barge into us.”
Yee made another classic side step during a press conference in Suva last month when asked about Vodafone Fiji’s ISP license status, since the company has now begun to offer Internet based services to the general public.
He mumbled something about the country’s sole mobile telephone service provider going into wireless Internet and the rest was inaudible.
While announcing its US$15 million partnership with Ericsson Australia for the upgrade of its mobile network to a 3G standard – which its release says will cost it a total US$50 million over a five year period - this affiliate to the country’s biggest listed company had nothing to say about its procurement of a license to provide what would now become new revenue sources among its range of services.
“High speed web surfing and data access while mobile will become a reality so the experience will be the same whether you are in the office or outside. Speeds of at least 1MB/s and up to 14 MB/s should become the norm,” Yee announced. “The new technology will allow Vodafone Fiji to launch a whole host of new infotainment services such as Vodalive!, multimedia messaging, video telephony, location-based services and high speed wireless Internet.”
Behind the grand design however, no one is in a hurry to talk about levelling the playing field where licensing is concerned. There are people in the industry who are confused about this. Does Vodafone Fiji need an ISP license to operate or does it not?


...ATH CEO and Vodafone Fiji chairman Lionel Yee announces the Vodafone Fiji/Ericsson partnership in Suva, Fiji, November 2005.






If it needs a license and does not have it, why has it been allowed to provide Internet services? Another subsidiary question pops up: where is the industry regulator in all this?
What has been labelled as “one hell of a messy confusion” does not end there. Both TFL and its subsidiary, Internet Services Fiji Ltd (trading as Connect) do not have ISP licenses, a point that was raised by the Commerce Commission in its recent ruling on the price of telecommunication services in Fiji. If, under Fiji laws, companies are required to be licensed in order to provide Internet services, as has been required of the new independent ISPs, why are Connect and Vodafone Fiji exempted from this rule?
The Department of Communication, which is the industry regulator and licensing authority, had referred all queries to its ministry’s chief executive officer.
The Ministry of Information, Communications and Media Relations is silent on this issue and did not reply to questions sent to it.
In all fairness, it may be pointed out that telecommunication is a complex industry where problems are not solved overnight. But ISP licensing has been a sticking point since the Internet was introduced into Fiji in 1995. Local media reports at the time had pointed out that there was no mention of the issuance of an exclusive ISP license to Telecom Fiji. Ten years on, this point remains unclarified despite the huge change in Internet and Internet technologies since then.
Yee later reiterates what TFL has consistently argued over the years. That the exclusivity clause in TFL’s telecommunications license is all-embracing and covers all forms of communication in the domestic market, whether transmitted via telephone, telex, telegraph or in data form.
This same rule applies when TFL transferred the part of its license that deals with mobile communication to Vodafone Fiji when the latter was incorporated in 1993.
The conglomerate’s deep conviction with this argument has, over the years, seen it reluctant to allow new players into the market despite government moves to gradually deregulate certain parts of the industry. To illustrate the incumbent’s reluctance, one ICT specialist pointed to the fact that despite the number of ISP licenses that has been issued by the government since it opened the ISP market in 2000 – and this amounts to more than 10 licenses – not one new player has entered the market until this year. If those who had applied for those licenses had banked on some brilliant ideas that they could bring cheap connections to their customers by buying bandwidth directly from offshore resellers or directly from FINTEL (Fiji International Telecommunications Limited), they were greatly disappointed. TFL waived its exclusive licence and emphasised its right of control in the domestic telecom kingdom. No one was going anywhere if they did not go through its network. That being one part of its argument, it then moved to dub itself an ISP and created Connect in 2002 to trade its Internet business. As the Commerce Commission highlighted, both still do not hold an ISP license. But as Yee and TFL managing director Josaia Mar have often argued, every move that TFL makes is catered for in the company’s telecommunication license.
This argument has never been legally challenged however and there are those in the industry who still wonder about how this license, issued in1989, could have foreseen the advent of the Internet when this medium of communication was still a budding cocoon at the time and the world had yet to come on line.
But if the unclarified issue was swept under the carpet, as some commentators believe, then it has been flushed out again as the ATH Group of companies, particularly Telecom Fiji and its subsidiaries Vodafone Fiji and Connect, are forced to compete in a business that is rapidly reinventing itself.
As this edition went to press, it is understood that Connect has finally applied for an ISP license but Vodafone has yet to make an application.
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NOTE: This article was published in the Fiji Business Magazine (www.islandsbusiness.com) as: Vodafone Fiji US$50 million 3G upgrade...But where is the ISP license? pp 7,8, December 2005 edition.

Fiji Business is a publication in the Islands Business International portfolio and sold only in the Fiji islands as an accompaniment to Islands Business Magazine.
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