Air Niugini flies

into turbulence

Air Niugini, the Papua New Guinea national airline, has flown into severe turbulence in a succession of industrial, financial and personnel prob lems.

The strong-minded and out

spoken Minister for Transport

and Civil Aviation, Mr lam bakey Okuk, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, has been at the centre of much of the controversy. Within weeks of taking office following the fall of the Somare Govern ment, Mr Okuk first suspended and later sacked the General Manager of Air Niugini, Mr Gerald Fallscheer, an Aus tralian.

Mr Fallscheer had been in the job for only 10 months and Mr Okuk accused him of inef ficiency. Mr Okuk said the air line was facing a serious financial problem, but claimed that Mr Fallscheer had not

properly acquainted him with

the situation to allow proper liaison between management and government in the oper ation of the airline.

The trigger for Mr Fallscheer’s suspension was his departure overseas on leave at a time when Mr Okuk said he should have stayed on the job.

Mr Fallscheer has since taken legal action on grounds of

wrongful dismissal.

It became apparent that all was not well at Air Niugini earlier this year when alle gations were made that the air line was in serious financial trouble. The National Airlines Commission asked the Ombudsman to investigate

claims of impropriety against

the airline’s management.

Meanwhile the airline sacked its commercial man ager, Mr Niels Brockdorff, and Mr Okuk who was then

leader of the Parliamentary

Opposition - said the sacking was because Mr Brockdorff ‘knew too much’. Later when Mr Okuk came to office in the new Chan government he

entrenched a political row by

appointing Mr Brockdorff to

chair a committee of review into Air Niugini.

He acted against the advice of departmental heads and was bitterly criticised by the air line’s deputy manager Mr Bart Philemon. Mr Okuk retaliated against Mr Philemon the

highest-placed Papua New

Guinean citizen in the airline’s executive by calling him a stooge for external influences.

Hard on the heels of the

management problems the big

gest union in the airline, the National Graded Officers As sociation, called a strike over ‘political interference in man agement’. The Airline was grounded for 36 hours before the strike was settled.

Although the Prime Minis ter, Sir Julius Chan, supported Mr Okuk’s actions he has admitted that Mr Okuk was not

‘diplomatic’.

‘Certainly his personal style

is not the Michael Somare ap

proach of compromise,’ Sir

Julius said. He added ‘The new government was forced to intervene. The minister took firm and immediate action. I admit he was undiplomatic, but the facts are there. Air Niugini’s problems are of such a size that they could not have been built up overnight.’

Overseas Aid

For

Solomons

Australia will give Solomon Islands $A14.3 million in aid during the next three years.

Details of the Solomon Islands grant were made known after Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Andrew Peacock announced that his country would give an overall grant of nearly $l2O million to South Pacific coun tries.

A Solomon Islands Govern ment spokesman says some of the money, which will not be available until July, will be

spent on civil and economic

development.

A senior official of the Aus tralian Development Assist ance Bureau, Roy Spratt, has been to Solomon Islands to dis cuss what other projects the money will be spent on. The

spokesman said projects must

be recommended in detail and must be approved by the Solomons Government before

any money could be made available to ministries.

About $5.3 million will be spent on developing a hydro power scheme to supply elec tricity to Honiara, the Solomon Islands capital.

Meanwhile the British Government has announced reductions in some of its over seas aid programmes. However this will not affect Solomon Islands immediately because of a firm commitment of SA44 million as an independence aid settlement.

The British High Com missioner to Solomon Islands, Gordon Slater, said in Honiara that assurance was given last October that the aid settlement would be honoured. The financial settlement covers four years from July 1978 when the country gained its independence from Britain to July 1982.

Mr Slater said it was not im mediately known how the new

approach in Britain’s budget

ing might affect Solomon

Islands aid after 1982.

George

Atkin in Honiara.

Mr Gerald Fallscheer-he’s suing Air Niugini for wrongful dismissal