Tuesday 23rd March

Tiffany, Chie, Bruce, Keithie, Wills, Daisy




The sorry tale of SIWA has become a never ending story. SIEA announced they intend to increase the power cuts until SIWA pay the $16 million arrears, which I’m sure will upset more people as the water supply dwindles. It barely affects me, I’ve not had water to the house since Saturday morning, and that was only for a few hours up to 8.45am. There was a good editorial in the Solomon Star earlier this week, telling both sides to get their act together, we’re meant to be a city, and not only a city, the capitol city, and to also consider the consequences not having a water supply makes on tourism, investors etc. SIWA and SIEA are both Govt SOE, surely a bit of creative book-keeping could solve the problem, it isn’t as if the Solomon dollar is a benchmark currency.

We’ve had a few bits of good fortune with the contracts this week, MID have decided that all the roadside gardens, parks and roundabouts are to come under their jurisdiction, and asked Tiffany to redo our pricing to include all of these. At the same time, we can still keep our contracts with the sponsored gardens, so for once SEB is well into the black in the ledger.

SIWA = Solomon Island Water Authority
SIEA = Solomon Island Electricity Authority
SEB = Solo Enviro Beautification
MID = Ministry of Infrastructure and Development.

I’ll try to remember to put the words in when I use abbreviations

We had a farewell lunch for Chie from the Japanese Consul at Kitano Mendana. She is leaving at the end of the month, to join her husband in Munich. Chie has been our contact at the Consuls Office for the Grassroots Funding, and has been a tremendous help with getting everything finalised and approved. Wills leaves on Wednesday to join his lady in London, I’m sorry to see him go, he’s got a lot of ideas that we have borrowed, stolen, acquired, and he wrote the application for the EU Grant, which was approved just after Christmas. At least both have been able to see the outcome of the work they have done for us, I’ll be sending updates to them as we get further into the construction stage.

The weather has settled, clear blue skies again for the last few days, and hot dry conditions. The little truck should be on the road once again once we get a new battery for it, and knowing my luck, the weekend will bring another cyclone.
We’ve got an allowance in the EU Grant for a truck, with a Hi-ab lift, and I’m looking through the website for the Japanese exporters. There are a few there that would be suitable, up to 3 tonne lift, on a 3 or 4 tonne truck. It’s just a matter of deciding which one, and then going through the ordering and importing paperwork. If I can get a reasonable deal, we should have enough spare to also get a small 4x4 for an office runabout, rather than using the little truck.