Sleight of hand

in the New Hebrides

From a Vila correspondent

Alice, whose assorted adventures in Wonderland became curiouser and curiouser, probably would have felt at home in Vila, New Hebrides, on March 13 when the budget debate in the Advisory Council was re sumed after being adjourned from December.

When the New Hebrides budget for 1973 was presented to the Advisory Council last December by the French and the British Resident Commis sioners, the members of Adco took the unprecedented step of rejecting it un animously.

Generally, members objected to total amount of expenditure proposed —606 million New Hebrides francs, and although the RCs said that it had taken four months to draft it and it had been pared to the bone, they remained adamant and the ses sion was adjourned.

Four members of the Advisory Council were then appointed to work alongside the finance section of the condominium government and at the resumption of the session on March 13, the fruit of their joint labours was presented.

Total amount of this budget was FNHI.I million more than that pre sented by the Resident Commissioners in December.

It was claimed to be a glorious victory nonetheless, and was approved without further trouble.

The explanation of what was ap parent sleight of hand was reasonable enough. Savings were made by pro posing to fill only 57 of the 95 vacant posts in the civil service but this and other economies were more than wiped out by newly-discovered expenditure—for example, an increase of FNH7 million in servicing the loans needed by the condominium to finance development projects, and in creased expenditure on setting up a price control bureau and improve ments in health and education services.

The Advisory Council’s finance committee was, however, able to tell fellow members that the administra tion had accepted the following points made when Adco had turned down the budget in December: • Import duties would not be in creased; • New posts proposed for the condominium government had been reduced; • Proposed salary revision for

civil servants to be reassessed; and • A price control bureau to be established in 1973 with worthy object of combating inflation.

The joint administration had also “taken note of” some other points made on that same occasion: the formation of a permanent Adco finance com mittee to assist in preparation of the annual budget; the possibility of ex panding civil service working hours, suppressing four of the Condo minium’s present 15 public holidays; and the improvement of inter-island marketing of local produce.

No promises were made but the joint administration professed a “sincere wish” to give genuine con

sideration to the Advisory Council’s views.

The New Hebrides is wallowing in troubled waters at the present time —with low prices for its produce on one hand and galloping inflation on the other. As most of the NH in flation is generated outside its shores, it is hard to see what effect a price control bureau is going to have, particularly as inflation’s greatest im petus in the past year has been the administration’s decision to base im port duty on a CIF value instead of FOB. This is taking a page out of Fiji’s book where this iniquitous method of calculating import duty has been in force for about 20 years.