Hard place

The Region

Hard place for a home

Debate over Noumea alternative delays decision on SPC site

By Geoff Adlide

SIXTEEN years ago a consultant engineer warned the South Pacific Commission that its home was rot ten. Termites were entrenched in the timber of the World War Two former United States military base. Numerous reports have since confirmed the need for a new SPC headquarters. The Noumea fire brigade said the wood was so dry and hollow that a fire would mean certain devastation.

“One day soon we may literally find the roof falling in on our heads,”

Secretary-General Atanraoi Baiteke told the conference. Also, the staff had outgrown the offices. He said new programmes scheduled to start in the next few months may be hampered by the lack of office space.

For over a decade the question for the 27-member countries of the SPC has not been whether to rebuild, but how to pay for it. But now a new question has emerged one laced with delicate

political undercurrents: where to build?

Late last year SPC staff read in the local newspaper of a new development plan for the Noumea beachfront suburb of Anse Vata. The land which has been the SPC’s home for over 40 years was earmarked for tourist development by New Caledonia’s Southern Provincial Government. The Southern Province is controlled by Jacques Lafleur’s predominantly European anti independence party, the RPCR.

Although the SPC has legal title to the land, and it could choose to stay put, the pressure to move is resented by some island countries. The French Govern ment keen to keep the prestigious regional organisation within its domain is caught in the middle. Only two years ago Paris announced a new diplomatic campaign to make friends in the Pacific and integrate its territories into the region. In June this year, the SPC Secretary-General visited Paris at the Government’s invitation the first such invitation to be extended to the

Spc.

“I know that some of you have had serious misgivings about the proposed move from the present site, thinking perhaps: ‘We are being driven out of our homes, which means that we have become undesirable in the village’,”

French High Commissioner Bernard Grasset told the Conference delegates on the opening day. “This is not the case, I hasten to assure you.” Grasset said he was trying to effect a balance between the economic development of the terri tory and the needs of the SPC.

Despite Grasset’s plea, images of rejection surfaced several times during the six-hour Conference debate. Most delegates said it was their government’s preference to rebuild on the present Anse Vata site. And they resented the fact that a French and New Caledonian offer to partly fund reconstruction was con ditional on the SPC vacating Anse Vata.

“Most un-Pacific,” was how the Ameri can Samoan delegate described the offer.

The Marshall Islands representative, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Mack Kaminaga, likened the SPC head quarters to a big canoe. “One of our brothers is telling us to get off the canoe,” he said. “He’s not asking us, he’s telling us.” Kaminaga said that the Pacific Islands people have long been pushed around. “We have to stand firm together as Pacific Islanders. Although it’s coming

from a Pacific brother, he doesn’t sound like a Pacific brother.”

“I do not ask people to leave the canoe,” re sponded New Caledonian

representative, Jacques

lekawe, “but to move to another, better canoe.”

The Municipality of Nou mea has offered an alterna tive site in a nearby suburb, coincidentaly called Re

Geoff Adlide

Standing firm: Vunibobo and French Polynesian delegate Louis Savoie at the South Pacific Conference in Noumea

Geoff Adlide

The South Pacific Conference headquarters

ceiving. An SPC committee was set up earlier this year to investigate three options: rebuilding at Anse Vata; building on the Receiving site; and, moving to another island country.

The only island to offer to host the SPC was French Polynesia. But the French Polynesians made it clear they were not competing with Noumea the offer was contingent on a decision to quit their

sister French territory.

While Fiji did not offer itself as a potential host it has made it clear it would welcome an invi tation to do so the committee considered the option for “indicative pur poses only”.

Despite finding construc

tions cost in Fiji to be about half of those in New Caledonia, the committee recommended to retain the headquarters in Nou mea. It was split on

whether to remain at Anse Vata or move

to Receiving.

While construction costs would be 10 per cent cheaper at Receiving, Committee Chairman, American Samoan I.S.

Mulitauopele reported that SPC mem bers have a “long-standing, deep-seated attachment” to Anse Vata. He said the prime location of the Anse Vata site “is in keeping with the prestigious nature of

the SPC”. The committee also noted that the Receiving site is smaller than the Anse Vata site and said its suburban location is less convenient to facilities and services. The cost of building at Receiv in § would be USS 24 25 million of which France and New Caledonia had offered to contribute US$lO million.

Mulitauopele said his committee had asked the RPCR Mayor of Noumea if he

would issue a building permit to rebuild at Anse Vata. “The Mayor said ‘no, no, no’. But our legal ad vice is that we could win it in court,” he said.

Fiji’s representative, Trade and Commerce Minister Berenado Vunibobo, said he had great difficulty accept ing the recommen dation to stay in Nou mea. “We’re being

told: ’You can stay, but go to the back of the village, we don’t want you to be an eyesore!” he said. “But the most compelling reason is cost.”

He said the committee should look beyond the construction costs to the long term cost implications of staying in Noumea. “Many aid donors will give you a hospital for S 6 million, but they never tell you how much it’s going to cost

to run the damn thing.” New Caledonia has one of the highest cost of living in the region. Telecommunications and postal charges, for example, are two to three times higher than those in other island countries. The New Caledonian rep resentative said the relevant Minister in Paris has been asked to agree to substantially reduce the charges for the

Spc.

The conference eventually agreed to defer a decision until next year’s confer ence, and requested the committee to

investigate comparative long-term oper

ating costs. But debate flared again when draft terms of reference were tabled. The French representative, Ambassador Philippe Baude, agreed to defer the decision another year and further explore the question of costs, but argued that the Conference had already reached a con sensus to retain the headquarters in Noumea. He said there was no need then to mandate the committee to examine the option of rebuilding in another island country.

“There is no consensus,” declared Fiji’s Vunibobo. “We’re being brow-beaten so that we keep the headquarters here. I find it intolerable that our graciousness is being abused by us being bullied around so we can agreed to the last iota of what authorities here want.”

Vunibobo said that to make a judgement on relative costs, figures are needed from elsewhere. “It doesn’t worry us if it’s not Fiji, but if we don’t (consider costs

Adlide

Muliatauopele

elsewhere) we may as well not have a committee,” he said. Although the specific option of rebuilding in another country was deleted from the terms of reference, another paragraph was in serted requiring the committee to “examine comparative operational costs of location in another country.” The Committee will look at funding and concessions granted by other countries to international organisations on their ter ritory. It will also report on the benefits to New Caledonia of hosting the SPC.

Ironically, while the Noumea econ omy dominated by non-Kanaks may profit from the SPC’s presence, the Kanaks in the rural and island areas of the country see little benefit from SPC programmes. The SPC embarks on projects only at the invitation of the island governments. In New Caledonia, the official contact point is the Paris appointed High Commissioner. Until very recently, the French have not seen the need, or have not wanted, to have SPC projects operating in Kanak areas.

The Conference called on France and New Caledonia to increase their offered contribution to rebuilding costs and apply it to both the Anse Vata and

Receiving sites.

The 130 staff at the SPC headquarters are hoping that their boss’s fears are not borne out and that the roof of the 45-year-old building stays put for at least another year. Meanwhile the termites have won more chewing space. □