This mid-year season, Rabaul Town, has experienced the WORST ash fallout from Mt. Tavuruvr Volcano (Matupit) in my personal opinion/experience. The eruption of 1994, was of course, DISASTROUS, and I don't wish to downplay this fact, but this year 2008, Tavurvur appears to have produced the largest and most consistent amount of ash (sand really) since then.We are under seige and overwhelmed.
At the Rabaul Hotel, we have valued staff on the roofs, in the garden & its surrounds, every day, with shovels and wheel barrows digging out the ash that has accumulated over night.
It is a horrible and tedious job, but it has to be done or the roofs will collapse.
Rabaul Town is not so pretty these days. Unfortunately, not like its halcyon days when it was described as the "Peal of the Pacific"! It is more like the "Sand Dune of the Pacific"!
To add insult to injury, we have had shabby and sensational reporting by the local Newspaper, who reported on at least three occasions, that the ash was life threatening!
This led to mass hysteria and panic by the workers of Rabaul and the closure of some much needed utilities like the Hospital, the Technical School and the Bank, which declared it would only open 'till 1.p.m. daily. The Power company also would not attend to R & M until "conditions improved"!
There was even a threat by the authorities to 'close the town' and declare a STATE OF EMERGENCY. The last time the Army was called in to facilitate a SOE, they arrived with backpacks and departed with approx. 5 containers load of looted goods!
We as business operators could not allow this. If we were to close down, it would be the nail in the coffin and more importantly, how would the surrounding areas get their goods to the people? We are still the third largest Port in PNG, importing and exporting and the feeding straw to Kokopo Town and indeed, the whole Islands Region.
The East New Britain Chamber of Commerce, presided over by my Husband Bruce Alexander, led the charge. The Newspaper in question would have to produce the so called document that proved the ash was poisonous, IMMEDIATELY!
It is a horrible and tedious job, but it has to be done or the roofs will collapse.
Rabaul Town is not so pretty these days. Unfortunately, not like its halcyon days when it was described as the "Peal of the Pacific"! It is more like the "Sand Dune of the Pacific"!
To add insult to injury, we have had shabby and sensational reporting by the local Newspaper, who reported on at least three occasions, that the ash was life threatening!
This led to mass hysteria and panic by the workers of Rabaul and the closure of some much needed utilities like the Hospital, the Technical School and the Bank, which declared it would only open 'till 1.p.m. daily. The Power company also would not attend to R & M until "conditions improved"!
There was even a threat by the authorities to 'close the town' and declare a STATE OF EMERGENCY. The last time the Army was called in to facilitate a SOE, they arrived with backpacks and departed with approx. 5 containers load of looted goods!
We as business operators could not allow this. If we were to close down, it would be the nail in the coffin and more importantly, how would the surrounding areas get their goods to the people? We are still the third largest Port in PNG, importing and exporting and the feeding straw to Kokopo Town and indeed, the whole Islands Region.
The East New Britain Chamber of Commerce, presided over by my Husband Bruce Alexander, led the charge. The Newspaper in question would have to produce the so called document that proved the ash was poisonous, IMMEDIATELY!
It took a week of sharp dialogue, but in the end they could not produce the report and during the weekend and then on Monday, we received three articles stating the ash was NOT HARMFUL !
The Newspaper even attempted to produced good will and positive thought to the people of Rabaul.
During this very testing time, an Executive Member of the Chamber and fellow Rabaul Town resident & businessman, Mr Nic Lyons (Rabaul Metal Industry) wrote a letter to the same Newspaper explaining his position, which became OUR POSITION and it's BRILLIANT.
What can I say? It brings a tear to my eye and is exactly HOW IT IS and HOW I FEEL.
I also believe it was the 'icing on the cake', especially since the articles were exposed as false and misleading.
I feel it only appropriate that the rest of the world read it.
Here it is............
Whilst those of us who have chosen to live and work in Rabaul do understand that events involving our volcano have a certain level of newsworthiness, many of us also feel that there is an untoward element of almost salacious pleasure being taken in our discomfort by those who write, edit & publish stories about our situation.
The business community of Rabaul feels that they are being particularly poorly treated by an estate that should be their ally (given where advertising revenue comes from).
Does the press not understand that the business community in Rabaul pay taxes like everyone else and yet, as soon as there is any increase in the level of dust at Rabaul, those in charge of the services (which we have already paid for) withdraw them from us? There are no concessions, rebates, double deductions, subsidies or anything else available to Rabaul based businesses, despite the difficult physical and economic conditions we operate under.
Neither is our plight ever reported on, except in articles that have an underlying implication that we shouldn't be here at all.
It should also be appreciated that many of us have nowhere else to go.
The authorities have made no offers of alternative locations for us. There have been no alternative port sites identified. There have been no offers of compulsory purchase of our properties or our businesses. States of emergency and natural disasters may be declared but none of that money filters down to those of us on the receiving end of Tavurvur's output to help us clean up or mitigate the effects of the corrosive ash.
So we just battle on, with relatively little complaint, dealing every day with levels of service that would make weaker people give up hope. The power providers, water supply, hospitals, schools, banks, all provide us with mediocre services at best and then they just give up as soon as the slenderest justification for a few days off comes their way in the form of a dust cloud.
Civic services here are so poorly organised and under-funded that businesses have no site available to dump the tonnes and tonnes of ash that we dig off our premises every day. The composition of the Town Council is such that the Chamber of Commerce has no representative on the council. The roads are falling apart, there are no street lights, the storm drains and sit traps are choked with ash and mud, the list goes on and on. But we pay our state lease rentals on our properties, we pay land tax to the provincial authorities, we pay GST, we pay Income tax, we pay Company tax, we buy business licences, we pay corporate LLG tax, we pay garbage fees. The list goes on and on. We pay and we pay and we pay. But services are not provided, no alternative is offered and our situation is un-reported..
The article your paper saw fit to publish at the beginning of this week and again as the front page leader today "Unhealthy Rabaul" will almost certainly provide the spur for further withdrawal or downgrading of services. It may even provoke a knee jerk somewhere in Waigani that leads to an attempt to close the town or declare an emergency. You no doubt feel that its wording and content were justified and, indeed, it may have been. But it is regrettable (and inexplicable) that the source documentation for your story could not be made available to stakeholders so that we could assess for ourselves the precise nature of the risk and danger that we have lived under for the last decade and more.
It is also to be regretted that in your Rabaul coverage of the last 15 years has your newspaper ever chosen to speculate on what will become of the many thousands of people who live in this Watom/Kombiu/Balanataman area of the Gazelle once the businesses that have been the sole source of their livelihoods have been driven into closure by those who govern or by those responsible for providing them with power, water, banking, telephone, civic services and daily news.
And when those businesses are finally forced to the wall, the nation as a whole will be the poorer because the Rabaul people of all races are one of the most closely bonded, public spirited, peaceful, compassionate and properly multicultural communities in Papua New Guinea. The nation's press should be champions of our struggle to survive and not the carpenter's mate holding the next nail to be hammered into our coffins.
Just because it is dusty doesn't mean we're dirty and just because some of the town is destroyed doesn't mean nobody lives here.
We're tired of reporters that drive in to our town, take a picture of the dust and drive off again.
Rabaul isn't Movie World and its not Toy Town but its definitely not Jurassic Park.
Its our home, and the only one we've got.
Regards
Nicholas Lyons
Executive Member
East New Britain Chamber of Commerce & Industry
Whilst those of us who have chosen to live and work in Rabaul do understand that events involving our volcano have a certain level of newsworthiness, many of us also feel that there is an untoward element of almost salacious pleasure being taken in our discomfort by those who write, edit & publish stories about our situation.
The business community of Rabaul feels that they are being particularly poorly treated by an estate that should be their ally (given where advertising revenue comes from).
Does the press not understand that the business community in Rabaul pay taxes like everyone else and yet, as soon as there is any increase in the level of dust at Rabaul, those in charge of the services (which we have already paid for) withdraw them from us? There are no concessions, rebates, double deductions, subsidies or anything else available to Rabaul based businesses, despite the difficult physical and economic conditions we operate under.
Neither is our plight ever reported on, except in articles that have an underlying implication that we shouldn't be here at all.
It should also be appreciated that many of us have nowhere else to go.
The authorities have made no offers of alternative locations for us. There have been no alternative port sites identified. There have been no offers of compulsory purchase of our properties or our businesses. States of emergency and natural disasters may be declared but none of that money filters down to those of us on the receiving end of Tavurvur's output to help us clean up or mitigate the effects of the corrosive ash.
So we just battle on, with relatively little complaint, dealing every day with levels of service that would make weaker people give up hope. The power providers, water supply, hospitals, schools, banks, all provide us with mediocre services at best and then they just give up as soon as the slenderest justification for a few days off comes their way in the form of a dust cloud.
Civic services here are so poorly organised and under-funded that businesses have no site available to dump the tonnes and tonnes of ash that we dig off our premises every day. The composition of the Town Council is such that the Chamber of Commerce has no representative on the council. The roads are falling apart, there are no street lights, the storm drains and sit traps are choked with ash and mud, the list goes on and on. But we pay our state lease rentals on our properties, we pay land tax to the provincial authorities, we pay GST, we pay Income tax, we pay Company tax, we buy business licences, we pay corporate LLG tax, we pay garbage fees. The list goes on and on. We pay and we pay and we pay. But services are not provided, no alternative is offered and our situation is un-reported..
The article your paper saw fit to publish at the beginning of this week and again as the front page leader today "Unhealthy Rabaul" will almost certainly provide the spur for further withdrawal or downgrading of services. It may even provoke a knee jerk somewhere in Waigani that leads to an attempt to close the town or declare an emergency. You no doubt feel that its wording and content were justified and, indeed, it may have been. But it is regrettable (and inexplicable) that the source documentation for your story could not be made available to stakeholders so that we could assess for ourselves the precise nature of the risk and danger that we have lived under for the last decade and more.
It is also to be regretted that in your Rabaul coverage of the last 15 years has your newspaper ever chosen to speculate on what will become of the many thousands of people who live in this Watom/Kombiu/Balanataman area of the Gazelle once the businesses that have been the sole source of their livelihoods have been driven into closure by those who govern or by those responsible for providing them with power, water, banking, telephone, civic services and daily news.
And when those businesses are finally forced to the wall, the nation as a whole will be the poorer because the Rabaul people of all races are one of the most closely bonded, public spirited, peaceful, compassionate and properly multicultural communities in Papua New Guinea. The nation's press should be champions of our struggle to survive and not the carpenter's mate holding the next nail to be hammered into our coffins.
Just because it is dusty doesn't mean we're dirty and just because some of the town is destroyed doesn't mean nobody lives here.
We're tired of reporters that drive in to our town, take a picture of the dust and drive off again.
Rabaul isn't Movie World and its not Toy Town but its definitely not Jurassic Park.
Its our home, and the only one we've got.
Regards
Nicholas Lyons
Executive Member
East New Britain Chamber of Commerce & Industry
3 comments:
I feel for you.
I get regular updates about Rabaul and the latest have not been so promising.
But you're right - life goes on, and will always go on.
Rabaul should be celebrated and encouraged - not forgotten.
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My heart goes out to the writer of this blog entry and all the other Rabaulites who keep the old town alive. I came to Rabaul in the dying days of 1969 to work as an audit clerk with Hancock Woodward & Neill under the then manager Barry Weir, later to be replaced by Mark Henderson. I shared my living quarters, a converted Chinese tradestore in Vulcan Street, with Gary Carr-Boyd and Graham Wardwho was to remain in Rabaul for many years and is, I believe, still somewhere in Port Moresby. I stayed but a short time in Rabeul before moving on to Bougainville, Moresby, and Lae but I have always kept many happy memories of this very special place. I would like to return one day to see it again!
With best wishes and kind regards
Peter Goerman
email riverbend@batemansbay.com
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