Caledonians'
p. 39 · Read in the full issue
'On the back of the Caledonians'
From a Noumea correspondent
The SOMMENI company project to build New Caledonia’s second nickel factory faced close scrutiny and prolonged scepticism when de bated by the island’s Territorial Assembly.
The Patino-owned company is to smelt garnieritic ore in the north of the island, around Poum and Koumac. The factory is intended to have an intial production capacity of 16.000 tons in late 1976, with pro vision for expansion to an eventual 36.000 tons of nickel metal output annually.
Thirteen autonomist members of the Caledonian Territorial Assembly refused to join the majority in ap proving the project, not because they oppose the island’s northern develop ment, but because they wished to register their disapproval of Paris handling of the scheme, including the fact that no guarantees were ob tained to insist upon priority for jobs being reserved for Caledonian-born workers.
At the same time, led by Maurice Lenormand, the autonomists pointed out that the assembly’s approval of the project was only rubber-stamping plans drawn up in Paris, under the French Billotte Laws (mining code) which the Caledonian Assembly has repeatedly condemned and sought to have repealed.
Furthermore, in order to protect independent Caledonian mining in terests, the assembly majority heatedly opposed the fact that Paris has granted SOMMENI the right to export unrefined nickel ore. Here again, however, the Caledonian Assembly has no power to intervene.
Lenormand denounced the “neo colonialist” way in which the opera tion was presented to the assembly and claimed the whole SOMMENI project of tax exemptions, ore export rights and other concessions was being imposed “on the back and be hind the back of the Caledonians”.
Once the assembly approval was carried, however, a spokesman for SOMMENI in Noumea indicated that the first work to be launched straight away would involve a roadway and the port of Koumac. Actual pre paratory work for the factory site outside Koumac is scheduled to begin during the first few months of 1974.