Tonga Industry

repeater design which should be free of maintenance for 25 years.

Some tenders connected with the project have already been called, and the acceptances are expected to be announced by October. HMNZ Monowai, a survey ship of the New Zealand navy, is still engaged on a detailed route survey for the cable. The survey takes into ac count seabed profiles and tem peratures, landfall approaches and seabed hazards which could endanger the cable. Where the route follows the existing COMPAC route the new cable will be laid five miles to the side of the COMPAC cable. This will avoid any physical inter ference problems during the laying operation or in sub sequent retrieval and repair operations.

Ploughing techniques may be used for some sections of the cable close to land. Ploughing involves the digging of a seabed trench in which the cable is buried, and is sometimes necessary to avoid damage by fishing ships using trawling equipment.

Despite the rapid growth of satellite communication sys tems over the Pacific, cable systems are still seen as the mainstay for major trunk cir cuits. Engineers believe how ever that the two systems will become progressively inte grated and complementary to each other in the immediate future.

Tonga Industry

estate grows

Four more factory buildings are under construction at the small industries estate in Nukualofa as part of a progressive develop ment by the Tonga Department of Labour, Commerce and In dustries.

The estate was opened last year to provide rental factory premises for local and overseas entrepreneurs, as part of incen tives to encourage new indus tries interested in the kingdom’s low wage structure and using the remarkable manual skills of the Tongan people.

The first phase consisted of five factories, complete with all necessary services (now produc ing saddlery, knitwear, wooden

toys, paper products and tubu lar steel furniture) and two ‘nursery buildings’ with separ ate bays for testing experimen tal projects.

Applications for the premises now being built by a local firm, Oceanic Industrial Enterprise Ltd, are already being pro cessed and the government will build more factories if required.

One of the original tenants, Michael O’Brien (Tonga) Pty Ltd, an equal joint venture between Tonga and an Austra lian saddlery firm which has moved all its manufacturing operations to Nukualofa, has applied for land on the estate on which to build its own larger factory. This will have initial provision for 100 employees and expansion potential for 500.

The firm’s progress is seen as a classic example of what can be achieved in a favourable, low overheads, low-wage situation, by bringing in trade specialists to develop the inborn manual skills of a Tongan workforce.

To keep pace with growing demand for hand-stitched saddles, accessories and har ness, the original intake of 20 apprentices has already grown to 60, and more will soon have to be added to keep pace with the order book, particularly the near-embarrassing volume of Australian and New Zealand orders for the company’s saddles. The Australian distri bution division of the firm is handling the marketing, and has recently sent samples of Tongan-made harness to UK and USA, both of which offer potential as export markets for the specialised products.

Mr O’Brien said the recent relaxation of New Zealand im port restrictions under the SPARTECA agreement had given considerable impetus to his expansion programme and the need for larger factory premises by the end of this year.

He praised the co-operation and encouragement received from the Tongan government but said there had been some teeth ing troubles during the first year of operation. ‘There is no doubt about the outstanding ability of our Tongan apprentices,’ he said ‘but at first we underestimated the number of expatriates re quired during the early training

stages. However, we have now been able to reduce our Austra lian training staff from six to four and have appointed an excellent Tongan teacher supervisor in the saddle div ision.’

Another problem, involving considerable expense through waste of training time, was loss of trainees lured abroad by the hope of higher wages. This has been solved by the introduction of an employee incentive scheme, with wage rises at the end of eight and 12 weeks and a trade test after 26 weeks. This leads to a further pay rise and entry to the company’s bonus scheme for export-quality work. ‘We’re already confident that this enterprise is going to be come an internationally-known success story,’ Mr O’Brien said, ‘and we intend to make sure that our Tongan workforce has a worthwhile financial stake

in that success’.

Penny

Hodgkinson in Nukualofa.

Industrial law

for Solomons

Solomon Islands has passed new laws to deal with industrial disputes and to promote the settlement of disputes which arise between employers and employees. The Minister for Trade, Industry and Labour, Mr Pulepada Ghemu, who piloted the law through parlia ment in April, said the new legislation had become necess ary because of the rapid growth of industry and employment.

The new law supersedes an earlier trade disputes act. Mr Ghemu said the earlier law had proved too slow and ineffective in dealing with disputes. Under the new arrangements Solomon Islands will have a permanent industrial disputes panel which will meet whenever a dispute arises. Previously the govern ment has experienced trouble in calling together arbitrators at short notice. The new panel will contain representatives of em ployers and of the Solomon Islands National Union of Workers, sitting with an inde pendent chairman. When deal ing with disputes the panel will act first as a conciliation body, but if conciliation fails it will then arbitrate. Its decisions will not be subject to challenge for

12 months. The new law also prohibits industrial action while a dispute is in the process of conciliation or arbitration.

The legislation which parlia ment has accepted was pre pared under agreement from the government, the workers

union and employers.

George

Atkin in Honiara.

Cut costs, PNG

tells airline

Air Niugini, the financially troubled airline of Papua New Guinea, will increase its fares by 16% in June. It will also drop its uneconomic weekly flight to Hawaii, it will discontinue serv ing meals on domestic flights and it will establish a com mittee to plan further econom ies.

The measures were an nounced by the PNG Prime Minister, Sir Julius Chan, fol lowing an earlier announcement by the government that it was making available additional capital of $6.5 million to assist the airline. The fact that the prime minister, rather than the transport minister or the airline itself, announced the new ar rangements and economies is a significant indication of the serious manner in which the government is viewing the air line’s situation. Sir Julius said there would be no further fleet expansion and no diversification of activities by the airline until profitability was restored. He said that the airline manage ment had been instructed to follow a programme of restraint and cost-cutting.

The committee which will investigate cost-cutting will in clude the heads of a number of government departments, and will be supported by a com missioned management survey.

The management survey will also evaluate the full structure of Air Niugini’s overseas ser vices. There is a possibility, too, that the airline may dismiss up to 150 of its 1800 employees, or may at least allow wastage to reduce the size of the workforce.

Air Niugini was established eight years ago, taking over domestic services which had previously been operated by the Australian airlines TAA and Ansett, and progressively estab-

Tradewinds

lishing overseas links with Aus tralia, Indonesia, Solomon Islands, Japan, Hawaii, the Philippines and Singapore.

Three Australian airlines TAA, Ansett and Qantas shared the original ownership with the PNG government, but Ansett is now the only share holder outside the government and has only a minority interest.

The airline has a fleet of 16 aircraft, Boeing 7075, Fokker F2Bs and Fokker F27s.

The airline has been troubled ay political controversies, some nvolving its management and leet arrangements. Sir Julius daims that under-capitalisation n the airline’s early life has )een a major ingredient in its inancial problems.

Aerial mapping

n N. Caledonia

V specialised Australian aerial urvey crew in May completed detailed mapping operation or contractors in southern New Caledonia. The aerial photogra 'hy was carried out by a pecially-equipped Cessna

4028 aircraft operated by the big Australian mining and in dustrial company Broken Hill Proprietary Co Ltd (BHP).

French authorities in Noumea commissioned BHP to do the work because of the high cost which would have been involved in flying a survey aircraft from France. It was the first time an aerial survey had been carried out over New Caledonia by a non-French team.

The main survey was carried out for the Caledonian firm Neo Topo in the area of the Yate dam southeast of Noumea. Neo Topo is engaged in a feasibility study for the energy authority Enercal which plans to increase the availability of hydro generated electricity. The area near the dam is being surveyed as part of a proposal to build two tunnels which will divert water from the Ouinne and Pourina rivers into the dam.

The BHP Cessna also took harbour photographs for the Noumea Port Authority (Port Autonome), including colour photographs of the entire Noumea peninsula. The pic

tures from 6000 metres give a dramatic perspective over the hills and bays of Noumea, and poster-size copies have been eagerly sought by Caledonian tourist authorities.

The total time spent on the survey was six weeks, spread over three periods of operation.

The aircraft is equipped with a 200 kg aerial camera which projects below the fuselage. The operator uses a video camera and video screen system.

Although BHP operates the aircraft and crew for its own mapping requirements, 70 per :ent of the work undertaken is 'or associated or outside com oanies. Major projects have ncluded mapping work in con lection with Queensland coal levelopment, oil and gas marches on the Western Aus ralian northwest shelf, and the }k Tedi copper and gold study n the western mountains of s apua New Guinea. BHP is nstalling a fully-automated icrial map production service to ncrease the flexibility of its

napping services.

Helen

Rousseau.

BP to be Fiji’s

pine partner

A political controversy which began eight months ago came to a head late in April when the Fiji Pine Commission accepted British Petroleum’s offer to be the government’s commercial partner in developing the big Fiji pine forest project (PIM, Mar p33). But the announce ment was made against a back ground of dissent.

BP was one of three com panies on a short list favoured by the government to log and process timber from the new pine forests. The dissent began last year when a fourth con tender, the US-based United Marketing Corporation, en tered the country under the government’s guard, won the support of land owners, and lodged a late application to become the commercial part ner. The government was thrown into a controversial situ ation because it did not believe UMC would be a suitable partner but the land owners

threatened to boycott the scheme and thus destroy it unless UMC were chosen.

Early in April the govern ment banned the entry to Fiji of the UMC president, Mr Paul Sandblom, on the grounds that he had a criminal record for fraud and had served 11 years in gaol. The ban precipitated strikes and protests by land owners who had employment and contracts with the pine commission.

When the pine commission met to consider applications for the commercial partnership, land owners demonstrated out side the building. In a telex message from USA Mr Sandblom withdrew the UMC application at the last moment, but the demonstrations con tinued and the pine commission continued to give the appli cation what was defined as ‘normal consideration’. The pine commission explained later it had taken this step because of the controversy created by the UMC involvement, and so that it could give specific practical reasons for refusing the appli

cation. It announced that the UMC proposal had not been found viable, and that the BP proposal appeared to offer the best means of meeting the aspirations of the land owners.

Protests and strikes con tinued among the land owners after the decision was an nounced, and 13 land owners were charged with criminal trespass. Several leaders of the land owners were also charged in connection with demon strations. The men charged with criminal trespass will ap pear in court in June.

Plans for the BP partnership in the pine deal are now being consolidated by British Pet roleum South West Pacific Ltd.

The company plans to offer a 20% equity in its processing operation to the pine com mission’s nominees, with a pro gressive shift of equity to 50%.

The processing operation will involve logging and milling, and the marketing of sawn timber and fibreboard. There will also be an extensive training scheme and the gradual phasing of Fijians into senior positions.