efficiency
Letters
Vanuatu
strike
Sir, I REFER to a report in PIM March 1994 headed ‘Not Korman’s Year’.
In that report you have erroneously stated that 19 employees of Better Price were “sacked for joining the strike”. This is incorrect. Better Price did not sack anyone for joining the strike.
Nineteen Better Price employees went on strike without any warning or giving any notice. Some of these people were subsequently involved in activities which included threats of violence to other staff members who refused to join them.
Despite this wholly illegal conduct all those involved were invited privately and publicly (over the local radio station) to return to work. Inevitably, the company had to replace those that chose not to return to work.
It should be noted that within hours of it becoming known that we had .some positions available, approximately 100 applications were received from people anxious and grateful for the opportunity to find work.
T L Leahy
South Pacific Stores Ltd Port Vila Vanuatu
Solomon
saga
Sir, I REFER to the report ‘The Solomon Saga’ in PIM November 1993.
Solomon Mamaloni raised the point about whether Francis Billy Hilly had a majority in a 24-23 vote split because of the way majority is defined in the Solomon Islands constitution. One won ders whether Mr Mamaloni would have raised the same point if the vote had gone his way.
In any event, both Sir George Lepping
and Justice Palmer made the right decisions though the decisions, especially Mr Justice Palmer’s, were justified by unnecessary, twisted, unsophisticated logic too crude even to be called sophistry. Obviously, the decision was made first by each and then a logic (?) developed to justify it.
The question should have been met head-on 1. that a decision was needed so that the government would not be leaderless and the country could move on to the real problems abroad in the land, 2. that the only options available were for the one with 24 votes to be prime minister or the one with 23 votes and, 3. of those two options, that the one who received 24 votes should be prime minister made more sense.
A third option, if one would want to call it a third option, would be to argue endlessly back and forth with appeal after appeal whether a member of parliament can be cut in half, meanwhile the country dithers.
To prevent future arguments about how many angels can dance on the top of a thumb tack, amend the Solomon Islands constitution to define a majority as “‘/z the number of members plus '/z, or more”. (Or just say majority and be done with it.)
Robert Silberstorf
Apartado Aereo 065629 Medellin, Antioquia Colombia
Tourism
efficiency
Sir, WITH reference to your February issue featuring the survey by David North on Pacific islands’ tourist bureaus, we wish to give you a rundown on this subject
again.
1. An airmailed letter, dated November 5, 1993, received via the prime minister’s office (as it was addressed to Director of Tourism, c/- Prime Minister’s Office,
Nuku’alofa, and with this address, it still managed to reach Tonga). The letter was registered as inward mail in our registration book on December 1, 1993. 2. A direction from the director of tourism on to the marketing officer to answer inquiries presented in the letter on December 6, 1993. 3. Delegated from tourism marketing officer to one of the marketing and information officers (Mr Tu’ula Moa) on December 9 who promptly actioned inquiries stated on the letter by Decem ber 10, 1993. 4. This was airmailed back to the sender on December 13, 1993.
The duration between the receipt and re-posting of this particular letter (ie.
December 1 to 13) is within the accepted time in. responding to such inquiries
(especially posted).
A facsimile of a similar manner would have been replied on the same day.
Tonga was listed as one of the countries that didn’t reply to the survey according to the FIM survey.
Semisi P Taumoepeau
Director of Tourism Tonga Visitors Bureau Nukualofa
Tree
trap
Sir, IRONICALLY, your front cover picture of‘The Tree Trap’ {PIM March 1994), taken presumably from another country, provides a glimpse of what the Solomon Islands will look like if logging is allowed to go on unchecked.
Bare hills and monocrop plantations of exotic species unable to support anyone except pulp wood manufacturers.
Barry Evans
Department of Botany University of Queensland Australia
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