Lockington's Everyday Fiji ... Life Goes On

 SCROLL DOWN TO OTHER WEEKEND READING  

♦ Gerald McGhie on The Vexed Question of External Aid  

♦ Graham Reid's second article on his Fiji visit 

♦ Teaching Men and Boys by Sharon Bhagwan Rolls 

♦ The 2011 Budget: Claims and Counterclaims 

♦ And Friday's long post.

 Allen Lockington is a self-employed customs agent and business consultant who has regular articles published in Fiji. I thank Allen for permission to reprint some of them in this political blog. They remind us that life goes on, whatever the political situation. And it's good to know that.

Cyclone Control

From records when there is a cyclone alert, civil servants are usually told to stay at home, or there could be some kind of instructions, for their benefit. Some years ago during a cyclone civil servants were told to go home, it was because government cared for their welfare and of course they had other responsibilities. And that they should go home and perhaps secure their homes. Government offices were to be secured and made safe.


On the flip side a husband who was a civil servant took the bus to his wife’s work place. Here the difference in how government and the private sector value the lives of their employees showed. He walked into the store shook the owner’s hands and said that government had sent all civil servants home for safeties sake. The show owner looked outside and said, “Areh yar, cyclone kaha he.” And said that he should go and see if his children were safe and secure their home, and that his wife would come home when it was knock off time, or if the cyclone intensified. The man was angry but held his peace; he couldn’t afford to make a scene. So off he went because he could not afford to pull his wife out she may lose her job.

This morning a taxi driver friend said he dropped a woman of at her work place and he had asked about her husband. He is a school teacher; he stayed home because schools were closed. The wife went to work like every other working person.

When there was a threat of a tsunami we witnessed chaos on our streets. Many schools have in place evacuation plans and parent shouldn’t worry and just go home. What parent will want to do that, if they are safe at home and they don’t know what has happened to their children hence the chaos? This time round the authorities won’t sound the alarm until the 11th hour. The Ministry of Education said that all schools should be closed. Some educational institutions thought otherwise. To them productivity should carry on.

But government took precautions by closing schools and that is one headache out of the way, children are precious.  I would like to suggest that in times of a real emergency and danger of a cyclone striking, could government assume executive control over every citizens and businesspeople? When they, government, decides to tell its employees to go home, what about the rest of the citizens, what about them. This may be a hard decision to make but hard decisions make just save lives. Food for thought next time the authorities sit with business people. Please put it on your agenda and debate it.