A Vanuatu Mobile Force’s officer who risked his life wading through chest-high water carrying ballot boxes, is calling on the new government to fund new bridges and roads for residents of central Santo.

Private Samuel Bani is part of the Vanuatu Mobile Force (VMF), a group of volunteers in Vanuatu’s military who support the Vanuatu Police.

He was one of hundreds making sure the 2022 election was possible by delivering ballot boxes to remote areas.

Some were sent by helicopter, others by truck and in some cases the journey was made by foot.

“The journey was so slippery — the road was flooded, there was no bridge, so we had to cross the river by foot. At some points the river reached my chest. It’s so dangerous while it’s raining,” Bani said.

“The journey was so tough, the current is so strong. We nearly lost the ballot boxes because the tide was so strong, it’s so dangerous,” he said.

Bani, an official based in Luganville, said his team risked their lives crossing the Jordan River to deliver boxes so people in remote villages could exercise their right to vote.

The team of three picked the boxes up in Sanma Province.

“We had to run four hours to reach the place, then we slept one night in a village then we walked seven to nine hours up the hill to reach Vunamele,” Bani said.

“These people have their rights, we just get the boxes up so they have their rights,” he said.

‘We put our life on the line’
With the swearing-in of the new government of Vanuatu looming this Friday, Private Bani is calling on leaders to learn from his experience and strengthen infrastructure in rural areas.

“We put our life on the line,” he said.

He wants elected representatives to make the journey he did to understand the hardship people go through just to have access to basic necessities like health care.

“There’s pregnant women walking down and when someone is dead they have to get the coffin back down,” Bani said.

Issues with infrastructure in parts of Santo is an ongoing issue, RNZ Pacific correspondent Hilaire Bule said.

People have died crossing the Jordan River, he added.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Anita Roberts in Port Vila

While the Vanuatu government is investing its resources in tackling the coronavirus pandemic threat, it is now stretching its resources to tackle other natural disasters posing threats to the lives of the people – Cyclone Harold still moving over the country after lashing Santo and constant ash fall from Mt Yasur on Tanna.

Torba and Sanma Provinces suffered flooding and damage from the cyclone.

A lot of people were evacuated as the cyclone brought strong winds, destructive storm surges and heavy rainfall that resulted in flooding.

READ MORE: Cyclone Harold: RNZ’s Jamie Tahana reports on trail of destruction

It made landfall in the south-western coast of Santo and caused damage to infrastructure that could be costly to recover.

Buildings were damaged, communication networks and electricity have been disrupted since yesterday.

The government lifted its Covid-19 physical distancing restriction to allow mass gathering of people in evacuation centers.

Cyclone Harold was upgraded to category 5 yesterday morning and is expected to gain strength as it continues on its forecasted path towards Fiji.

Store food, water advice
People are advised to store enough food and water and those in unsafe shelters and risky areas are advised to move out to safety.

Authorities in the affected provinces have provided evacuation centres to many families. At the Torba Provincial Headquarter in Sola, Vanualava, families have taken shelter in evacuation centres for several days now.

Director of the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO), Abraham Nasak, said: “This is a very challenging time having experience Covid-19 restrictions and Cyclone Harold impacts at the same time”.

Apart from COVID-19 and Cyclone Harold, NDMO is also coordinating response to the Teouma flooding and Tanna ash fall due to the increase in its activity recently.

Secretary-General (SG) of the TAFEA Provincial Government Council (TPGC) Joe Iautim stressed that the ash fall impacts on communities at the Whitesands area in southeast and a few in north Tanna was severe.

“People in these parts of the island are exposed to volcanic ash all year around and often go without food for several months. They rely on the market to buy crops to eat,” he said.

SG Iautim conveyed that a team from NDMO led by the Senior Provincial Liaison Officer of NDMO, Philip Meto, were in Tanna for the rapid assessment, following a request from communities and the TAFEA NDMO Office.

Ash assessment
He said assessment covered other areas that usually experience ash fall and volcanic gases following the wind direction.

NDMO’s Senior Provincial Liaison Officer, Meto, said rapid assessment had been completed awaiting decision from the National Disaster Committee (NDC).

NDMO Director Nasak has assured NDC will consider relief response to the affected families once the State of Emergency (SOE) put in place for Covid-19 ends on Thursday this week.

Director of the Public Health Department Len Tarivonda said the Health Cluster partners were ready to support NDMO response plan for Cyclone Harold.

Cyclone Harold was moving in a south-southeast direction towards central Vanuatu as of yesterday. It is expected to leave Vanuatu by mid-week.

The Pacific Media Centre republishes articles by arrangement with the Vanuatu Daily Post.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

BRIEFING: By Dan McGarry in Port Vila

The “news” this week that Vanuatu was to be the site of a Chinese military base caught most people by surprise. Government officials with detailed knowledge of relevant matters swore hand on heart they’d never even heard hints of such talk.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Ralph Regenvanu questioned the sourcing of the report, telling the Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat radio programme, “I’m not very happy about the standard of reporting in the Australia media”.

Chinese embassy officials in Vanuatu declined an interview request, stating, “The report is groundless and not worth any comment at all.”

READ MORE: Vanuatu rejects ‘speculative’ base claim

The topic has quickly become the loudest non-conversation in town.

Tacitly at least, officials from all nations recognise Vanuatu’s strategic importance.

A Chinese sailor raises the red flag on the prow of a PLA Navy frigate during a visit to Vanuatu. Image: Dan McGarry/Vanuatu Daily Post

-Partners-

Luganville, on the island of Espiritu Santo, was the site of one of the largest military bases in the entire Pacific Theatre during WWII.

Home to about 100,000 personnel at its peak, it saw nearly one million service people pass through before it was decommissioned in 1946.

Controlling air, sea
What was true in the 1940s remains true today: Whoever controls Vanuatu controls air and sea traffic between the United States and Australia. Right now, that’s the government of Vanuatu.

For more than a decade, this tiny island nation has leveraged regional rivalries to drive infrastructure development. Its dalliances with China, for example, resulted in a US$20 million investment by telecoms giant Huawei in an island-hopping communications network.

That move is said by some to have motivated a multimillion-dollar commitment from Australia to fund telecoms regulation and management.

For years, western nations were simply not interested in big-ticket, high-risk projects. Infrastructure projects worldwide are fraught with budget overruns, scope creep and delays. Risk-averse donors therefore shied away.

But not China.

Largely on the back of questionably “concessional” loans from the China EXIM Bank, contractors secured a mixed bag of infrastructure projects, ranging from roads to wharves to buildings. They include sport facilities, a convention centre and a school.

But the most noticeable project was a US$90 million wharf project in Luganville. Almost from the outset, people raised the spectre of the old American base there.

Revived interest
Many Pacific watchers think there’s no coincidence to a recently revived interest from the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and other funding bodies in Pacific islands infrastructure.

At the same time as the Luganville wharf was being constructed, Japan was also demonstrating its friendship to Vanuatu by building a major wharf facility in Port Vila, the capital. The US$70 million project came at much more favourable terms.

Australia meanwhile signed on to a US$30 million urban infrastructure development project in the capital. The World Bank has already committed $60 million to the nation’s airports, and is reportedly considering upping the ante to $150 million.

Despite the fact that Australia remains the largest donor in Vanuatu and the Pacific, analysts suggest that China has stolen a march on them by ingratiating themselves with politicians who see infrastructure projects as vote-getters.

An artist’s view of the completed Luganville wharf … source of the “base” controversy. Image: Shanghai Construction Group/VDP

Lacking coherence
It is widely felt that Chinese engagement lacks coherence, and that the quality of its work is variable, to be generous. But nobody doubts its popularity with the political elite here, and that is something that should cause concern in Canberra.

Locally, engagement between Australian development workers and their government counterparts is excellent. But communication between Pacific capitals and Canberra is sadly lacking.

Ill-considered stories such as the recent Fairfax article, or Senator Fierravanti-Wells’ January diatribe about Chinese “roads going nowhere” play poorly in the Pacific. They only offer China an opportunity to commiserate with local officials, and to go on quietly building roads and wharves.

Dan McGarry is media director of the Vanuatu Daily Post group. This article is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz