“Rumours” was a smash hit for Fleetwood Mac back in the Seventies. “Never Going Back Again”, “Go Your Own Way” and “Second Hand News” are still some of my favorite songs thirty something years later probably because nobody has sampled or done a remake of them! One of my two friends and fans of this column (I used to have three until Mum passed away two years ago, which meant of course that I no longer had the required number to be recognized as a “media personality”) said that he was absolutely sick of all the rumours and promised me that he would deliver a king hit to anyone who would decide to share another tasty bit of speculation and gossip concerning the RHD and land reform bills with him. I had just heard a couple of really good ones which I was busting to share with someone, anyone, but he is a big guy who can be quite accurate with his looping roundhouse swings if you stood still and he had his glasses on!
I’m not taking any unnecessary chances. Come Right-Hand-Drive-cars-on-the-Left-Hand-side-of-the-road time, you wouldn’t even be safe by getting a bike. You will have a very short time to enjoy your new found fitness and elevated sense of well being before you will be bowled by a member of the “overwhelming majority” who would be so engrossed in his dreams and plans on how to spend his RHD generated wealth to be that he would get his lefts and rights all mixed up and even at 10 miles an hour you would be just another nasty red stain on the footpath! As for the rumors which reached my ears last week, the one about certain members of a committee to advise parliament on the proposed land reform bill having a WiFi broadband link direct to heaven for spiritual guidance and divine intervention where necessary is too ridiculous to contemplate. I mean like who is their Internet Service Provider?
Certainly not SamoaTel who a reliable source said will not be handing government a cheque for their share of this financial years’ profits. Losses of an undisclosed but substantial amount were hinted at. But I can understand that. SamoaTel had to spend squillions on a cellular telephone network. It will take them more than twelve months to recover that money and make a profit. What is more important is how long they have said they will need to be profitable again like they were before when they were abusing you and I with their call and rental charges with an arrogance only those enjoying a complete monopoly position could display. Did they think two, three years max going by how much they were pulling in in the golden years of the pre-competition, pre-Digicel reality of now? I think it will get worse actually. Flash buildings and furnishings do not change attitudes which understand commercial competition as the other outfit with slimmer female employees, snazzier uniforms and more corporate functions. SamoaTel may pay their Go Reload prepaid card resellers a 20% commission for $10 cards and higher value while Digicel only pays 7% commission for all cards, but resellers of both companies’ cards sell three times more Flex cards than Reload cards! Mata the Kama’i Meauli said that it was because Digicel customers make more calls at more expensive rates but what does he know?
And while talking of flash new buildings and unchanged attitudes, one thinks immediately of the Police and new Police station. Those guys are not in competition with anyone in a commercial sense but they have been given a huge opportunity to carry out their work and perform their duties a lot better. I rang the Police about a month ago to find out where they had gotten to with an assault complaint lodged last year before Christmas. The Police officer who answered asked if I knew the name of the officer who handled the case. I have relatives in the Police but I cannot say that I know the names of each and every officer in the force. I felt stupid for not asking the officer for his name and details at the time the complaint was made. Why didn’t he remind me that I needed to know his name in case I rang up to enquire about progress, if any? When I asked the officer if they didn’t have a computer system where each case had been saved in a database so that you could search for cases by the duty officer’s name, the complainant’s name, address, phone number and a host of other search criteria, she hit me with, “Yes we do but we are only human and sometimes when we are very busy, we forget to enter each case into the computer, which is why we need the case officer’s name because he would have a copy in his note book.” My fault again for not getting that guy’s name! Bugger!
Has anybody kept count of the number of court cases thrown out by Judges because the Police did not have any or insufficient evidence? What sort of message is that sending out to the criminal element amongst us? But it is usually the big cases that seem to go a great distance to find insufficient evidence by the Police and prosecution. Could they not have decided that at some earlier point before they got that far? Would evidence and files still manage to go missing after each officer made sure that they entered all their case details and evidence into a computer database? I have encountered people in my working life who have actively tried to derail any attempts at implementing principles and processes designed to make things easier, better and capable of eliminating corrupt practices in an organization. I have no doubt that those wishing that the flash new building and high tech gizmos will make our Police perform their duties better (is “to the best of your ability” ever good enough?) will find opposition to change in many forms and will get tested every step along the way by those who see change as a threat. It is a pity if the flash exterior will just be a new covering for the ‘same old, same old’. Have a nice one folks!
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