not to handle Independence

Vanuatu: A lessen in bow not to handle Independence

By Patrick Decloitre

EIGHTEEN years after it

gained its independence

from Britain and France, Vanuatu last July 30 cele brated one of its gloomiest indepen dence days, with difficult times ahead.

Recent events in the island state have shown what observers predicted: things will never be the same again.

The first sign was the abduction of Head of State Jean-Marie Leye in October 1996 by paramilitary Vanuatu Mobile Force soldiers who demanded payment of unpaid allowances totalling about a million US dollars.

Last year was marked by an ongoing

spell of political instability, which only

ended by Leye’s dissolution of parliament last November.

After a legal battle, a Court of appeal finally upheld the dissolution early January this year and for the first time in Vanuatu’s young history, early general elections were held on March 6.

Meanwhile, the country’s official watchdog, ombudsman Marie-Noelle Ferrieux-Patterson, outlined cases of cor ruption, bad administration, abuse of

power in the highest political spheres.

It was one of her reports published late last year that caused a new kind of reaction from the public; Patterson alleged top lead ers in Vanuatu had used the country’s national provident fund (VNPF) to grant themselves loans and buy private houses.

On January 12, they besieged the VNPF headquarters in Port Vila and smashed its windows with stones. Looting entailed and an overwhelmed police force could not contain the crowd. It was the chiefs who managed to restore calm.

There was a state of emergency for the next four weeks, another first for Vanuatu, nearly until the general elections.

The outcome of the poll of March 6 did not fundamentally change the face of the 52-seat parliament: the most significant outgoing leaders retained their seats, with no-one having a majority.

But it seems the leaders this time got a message from the voters: Vanuatu’s histor

ical leaders, independence father Walter Lini and until then opposition leader Donald Kalpokas reconciled after seven years of bad blood to form a government shared between their National United Party (NUP) and Vanuaaku Pati (VP).

They inherited a critical situation: the

VNPF riots had forced the outgoing gov ernment to pay out massively the con tributing employees. This sudden influx of money into the local economy had caused a shopping spree - mainly of imported goods (televisions, VCRs, cars) - putting pressure on the national currency, the Vatu, which was on the verge of collapse.

The foreign currency reserve in the cen tral bank in February dropped from six months cover (the usual level) to three, and at times nearly two months. There were attempts to devalue the Vatu, a move that only lasted for the last three days of the previous government and was reversed as soon as Kalpokas’ government came into power on March 30.

Since then, official interest rates were lifted - raising average consumer loan rates from 12 to 17 per cent. Many small busi nesses that had taken loans from commer cial banks started to feel somewhat stran gled. The political speeches on Vanuatu’s 18th birthday focused on the comprehen sive programme (CRP), which is now well underway one year after its approval by a

national summit here. The CRP, co-ordi nated by Manila-based Asian Development Bank, promotes principles of good gover nance, transparency, and a private sector led economic growth. More pragmatically, it involves the introduction of a flat 12.5 per cent Value Added Tax (VAT) on goods and services that came into force on August 1. Also a 10 to 15 per cent “right sizing” of the 4,500-strong public service was to begin last August with all govern ment departments and services being com pletely restructured. In that context, Kalpokas’ speech was an appeal for the general public’s involvement in the reform effort. “Vanuatu is close to bankruptcy... drowning in soft mud and swims in nation al debt”, he said. Citing “corruption and self-interest of previous governments”, he went to the extent of saying Vanuatu had “lost its way”.

“Eighteen years after independence, a reform is needed to answer the needs of the people. The road ahead is not easy, but there’s no shortcut to it: we must be strong to face the challenge”. To implement its

reform, Vanuatu obtained a US$2O million soft loan from ADB. On independence day, President Jean-Marie Leye also called on the people to forget their differences and unite in these difficult times. He saw urban drift as one of the major cause off growing

social problems, especially in the capital

Port Vila.

“A lot of people don’t have work in town. They should go back to their islands and work on the land, plant kava, do some thing. This way, they wouldn’t walk around and make trouble in Vila”, he said, urging the government to truly implement decentralisation in the archipelago and restore the traditional chiefs eroding pow ers in the outer islands. “Before Captains Cook, Bougainville, Blight found these islands, it was the chiefs who were looking after us. Don’t forget that. But nowadays people are no longer afraid of stealing”. He also called on the leaders to acknowledge their past mistakes and wrongdoing, and did not exempt himself from the blame.

“I would only ask the people not to do as I did, but to do as I said.” ■