On Aneityum Island, we have been without mobile service for well over a week. TVL is the only provider; therefore the community of Anelcauhat has been without telephone communication and internet access. There are three public services that have been provided with HF radios but two of them, through shameful apathy, have failed to maintain them in working order. This has placed the community in needless and damaging isolation. I have for over six months tried to get an antenna lead cable from Air Vanuatu here in Vila and have been told many times that it would be in my hands shortly. Its been so long that the Air Van agent has taken the battery from the solar power system home for his own lighting. The flash Australian-funded Police station has a radio room with an identical model. For some reason it didnt communicate so its been out of use for over a year. I have offered to attempt a diagnosis but the OIC has simply neglected to provide me access to test it. I strongly suspect that it too suffers from a fault in the antenna lead becasue it goes through the ceiling and rats love cable insulation, especially when its been installed by a workman who has not washed his hands after eating. He let me look at it briefly, but it took me ten minutes just to get at it because the radio room is full to the ceiling with donated clothing that has sat there for months, failing to make any of the many boat trips made to the destination communities. In the same station, a private LARGE freezer served a fish business until the battery system had been drained so many times past the audible warning it gave up the ghost. The officer asked me to fix this, but all I was able to do was remove the four worst ones from service and wire the remaining four for the same voltage, resulting in enough capacity for a little lighting and a computer for about an hour. Probably the LEAST serious ramification of these two examples of neglect and misuse is that both services are using mobile phones instead of radios, costing far more after the initial high cost of the radios and power systems. The waste of public money is not limited to corruption in high places. My congratulations to the Meteo workers on Aneityum who have consistently called on me when a problem has been perceived and have paid attention to my training in the care and feeding of battery systems. They dont have twenty mobiles plugged in all day and DVDs playing. The Meteo office kept us well-informed through the latest cyclone scare and now is the only method of communication with the outside world.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 03:22:54 +0000