Planners

Without

A Plan

Australian and New Zealand delegates to the third meeting of the South Pacific Commission’s Plan ning Committee in Noumea early in May arrived for the meeting expect ing to be overwhelmed with sug gestions about the spending of the half million dollars their countries had given to the commission. Nobody had any ideas.

The only string which the donors attached to the gift was that it must be spent on regional projects and not on the commission’s overhead ex penses. That left a wide field for Island territories, all, presumably, eager to spend the windfall, but not one delegate had been briefed by his government although at past Con ferences the main burden of criticism has been a shortage of money and a plethora of projects. The Papua New Guinea delegate, Mr Tom Tubombom MHA, hadn’t been briefed on anything. He’d been given his plane ticket and told to attend.

With no previous experience of the SPC he was completely at sea.

And the same applied to most of the delegates. With the possible ex ception of Mr Akuila Savu, of Fiji, and Mr Eusebio Rechucher, of Micronesia, they were all new boys.

The lack of continuity among the planners indicates waning interest in the SPC by some of the Island governments who, maybe, see in the Noumea meeting an excuse for an outing for some well-behaved parlia mentarian.

It could also indicate that, not withstanding the vehemence with which the delegates to the Con ference stress that they are the arbiters when it comes to spending the money, they are willing to leave the job of planning to the per manent officials.

@ The Western Samoa Health Department recently introduced a tax of 10c a visit to the outpatients’ department by residents, and a slightly higher tax for non-residents.

The fees, the new minister explained, were to offset the $40,000 that had been owing to the Health Department by patients since 1970. The tax will also discourage visits by “loafers” who may be suffering from mere: scratches.