APRIL 16, 2010
Pages draw in a flash with fast new Internet
We can confirm that NTA’s new broadband “128kpbs” service is significantly faster than the regular dialup. This is the service that costs $89.95 a month, plus a one-cent per minute charge when on from 7am-7pm. How can we tell? Try opening the www.continental.com/ website home page on dialup. It can take three-to-four minutes to load. With the 128kpbs broadband, it loads in fewer than 30 seconds.
Audit shows up big issues with personnel
A limited audit of government workers in three ministries shows that a majority have incorrect job descriptions, and many workers are doing the same work as other employees.
“Outcomes from this limited personnel audit suggest it would be of benefit for the Public Service Commission to conduct a similar but more detailed audit across all ministries,” said the report compiled in December by the late PSC deputy commissioner Lenest Lanki and consultant William Pitkin.
BOMI offers cell service
Cell phone users will soon tap into their account at the Bank of the Marshall Islands to recharge or credit their phones while having an ice cream at home anytime. According to BOMI Information Technology Director and Programmer Joe Kaios, who is writing the program, cell phone users may soon be able to access their BOMI account to recharge their phones when all retail stores are closed, transfer money to different accounts or do a bank-to-bank money transfer, and pay their electrical bill.
“This mobile banking may launch in June and it will be a great benefit to all,” said Kaios, “especially people who stay in Laura.”
EU: $6 million for RMI solar
European Union and Marshall Islands, FSM and Palau officials are expected to sign off on two funding packages — worth a total of $32 million — for solar power for remote islands and regional fisheries programs. The agreements are to be signed Friday in Pohnpei by EU Ambassador Wiepke van der Goot and officials from the three freely associated states. Van der Goot was in Majuro this week heading a three-man delegation to review projects in the RMI. “The aim of the Northern Pacific Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Program (North-REP) is to improve the overall efficiency of the energy sector through energy efficiency and grid-connected renewable energy, and increase access to remote populations to affordable and reliable renewable electricity services,” the ambassador said.
NTA’s intern student Jorelik Tibon, Jr, who is an IT student at USP, and NTA IT guy Bobby Kattil are buzzing around town installing the new high-speed modems that come with the telecommunication
company’s new range of
Internet price packages,
which start at $89.95 a
month, plus a penny
per minute of
daytime use.



Photo:
Douglas Henry
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MEC's $9 million crisis
Kedi against deadline date
GIFF JOHNSON
The US push to have Rongelap resettled by the end of 2011 is boiling over into battle mode following the visit last week to the RMI by US Senate and House officials. US Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee staff Allen Stayman and Isaac Edwards, with their House counterparts Brian Modeste and Bonny Bruce, visited Rongelap and Mejatto — home of the displaced Rongelap people — as well as Kwajalein and Majuro. Stayman told the Journal that Rongelap Atoll Local Government has “decided to get the resettlement program back on track and has agreed to the target date for resettling Rongelap of October 1, 2011.” He also indicated Rongelap people at a community meeting last week on Mejatto expressed their support for going home. But Rongelap Senator Kenneth Kedi (pictured above) told the Journal he is expressing concern of Rongelap people on Mejatto, Ebeye and Majuro who do not agree with a recently adopted RALGov Council resolution endorsing a return home by October 1, 2011. “Since 1985, our concern has been for lingering radiation at Rongelap,” he said. “The original agreement involving Senator Jeton Anjain and Mayor Billiet Edmond and the US government was for cleaning all of Rongelap Atoll, not just Rongelap Island. But the program has focused on Rongelap Island and the small islands have not been touched.” Kedi said there is no question that Rongelap people want to go home because they never wanted to leave in 1985 — they only did so out of concern for their children’s future. “Don’t ask me if I want to go back,” he said. “We all want to return when the environment is injury and risk free. The question should be, ‘is Rongelap Atoll ready for us to go back?’” He said the answer is ‘no.’ “I will stand with the people and the direction they give me, which is not to go back until the atoll is decontaminated,” Kedi said. US government scientists say that Rongelap Island is now safe to return to and that radioactive cesium 137 is “washing” out of the soil throughout the atoll at a much faster rate than its normal 30-year half-life. Stayman also said he was happy to see RALGov cut its annual budget from the resettlement trust fund by more than 50 percent, from about $1.4 million to $600,000, which Stayman said will put the funding use at a more sustainable level.
Summing up the Congressional officials’ visit to Mejatto, Stayman said the US side “reassured (Rongelap Islanders) that the US is fully committed to a partnership (for resettlement).” Prior to this meeting with the community, “they were uneasy about US support and the US was uneasy about their commitment,” he said. Kedi said the rush to resettle is imprudent. “Rongelap people remember the thyroid tumors, cancers and miscarriages,” he said. “The Atomic Energy Commission told us it was safe to return in 1957 and now the same people (Department of Energy) are telling us it is clean again.” He emphasized the people want to return — if the entire atoll is safe. If people are told not to eat too many coconut crabs, and not to use the ‘pantry’ islands for collecting food “is that safe?” Kedi asked. Kedi said that the reason the RALGov Council voted to approve the unreasonable resettlement timetable is because they were misinformed that if they didn’t agree to resettle by 2011, food and funding for the community on Mejatto will cease. Kedi commented on a letter from Senator Jeff Bingaman and other Congressional leaders to the Department of Interior late last year expressing concern about the slow pace of the resettlement and financial accountability issues involving RALGov. “Why do our leadership mistakes have to result in people giving back to contaminated islands?” Kedi asked. He pointed out that Iroij Mike Kabua, who is the traditional chief for Rongelap, has already voiced his opposition to the RMI government about a return in 2011. Kedi indicated the RMI government appears to be staying neutral on the matter. Kedi said the people’s questions and concerns must be answered satisfactorily before a return, and he described an interview published in a recent issue of the Journal with Rongelap elder Lemeyo Abon who opposes a rush to resettle Rongelap as expressing “the voice of Rongelap.”
GIFF JOHNSON
Telling people in the Marshall Islands that the Marshalls Energy Company is in financial crisis is like “crying wolf” — after a while people just shrug and say, “again?” But MEC’s latest money crisis could be its worst yet and General Manager David Paul (pictured left) is fuming about the problem. MEC — and the RMI government as its loan guarantor — is facing the requirement of paying Bank of Guam $9 million on June 1. That’s $9 million that neither MEC nor the RMI government has. “We just found out that the loan agreement with Bank of Guam requires a ‘balloon’ payment of $9 million in less than two months,” Paul told the Journal Tuesday. “It was a surprise to everyone.” Paul and MEC Chairman Minister Maynard Alfred returned at the weekend from a visit to Guam where they discussed the situation with top officials at Bank of Guam. Cabinet
and the MEC board had instructed management three years ago to negotiate a loan with Bank of Guam for a 12-year payback period, Paul said. “This directive was totally disregarded by the previous management,” Paul said. The loan was taken from Bank of Guam to retire a much higher-interest payment to ExxonMobil. But the loan was negotiated with the requirement of a balloon (one-time) payment of $9 million on June 1, 2010. “This could shut down MEC and the RMI government,” Paul said. The reason he discovered this is MEC was reviewing its financials and the Bank of Guam loan because the Asian Development Bank is considering giving the RMI a low-interest loan that can be used to pay off the Bank of Guam loan to help stabilize MEC’s finances. ADB and RMI officials have been discussing a possible $14 million loan to the RMI that would have an eight-year payment holiday and then charge one percent interest. Paul said ADB officials were concerned there might be a provision in the agreement with Bank of Guam penalizing MEC for early-retirement of the loan. There was no penalty clause, however they are confronted with an impending $9 million bill. “No one told me this during the management transition,” he said. Paul said Bank of Guam is considering MEC’s request for refinancing. “We’re now at the mercy of Bank of Guam,” he said. “We need to be optimistic. Bank of Guam is mindful of the situation and it is a corporate citizen of the RMI.” He said that PII CEO Jerry Kramer had helped MEC to get meetings in Guam with high level bank officials. Paul said bank officials appreciated that MEC flagged the problem before the June 1 deadline. “They’re willing to work with us,” he said, adding that William D. Leon Guerrero, vice president of the bank, is in Majuro and Paul expected to meet with him this week.
Scholarship ladies help MIHS 12th-graders
Juliet Anitok and Rostina Morris from the RMI Scholarship office met with a group of Marshall Islands High School students who are applying to go to college in America this year recently to help them fill out their scholarship application forms. School counselor SK Lipson and mentors also took part in the meeting, which was a duplicate of an earlier meeting run by CMI’s Jacinta Samuel, who helped the students fill out their PELL grant application forms. Pictured from left around the table are Stella Kibin, Juliet, SK, Roselina Loren, Cary Evarts, Dolse Shoniber, and Rostina. Photo: Karen Earnshaw.

Journal 4/10/1971

Journal 4/12/1985
(Editor’s note: Majuro’s weather patterns the past few days appear to be mimicking this report from nearly 40 years ago.) April showers may bring May flowers, but to Majuro they also bring mud, rutted roads and an unexpected bonanza to ribelli row: running water, 24 hours a day for six days in a row. The island huddled under cloudy skies for the first eight days of the month, during which a total of 11.04 inches of rain fell. According to Bill Exley, weather technician in Majuro, we should “considerably beat the normal” of 12.31 inches for the month. He would not lay odds as to whether we will beat the record of 23.41 inches that fell in April of 1960.The 12.31 inches compares to last month, when 2.87 inches fell in “Of course there is no Multibank,” said a former agent of the bank that has falsely claimed registration in the Marshall Islands while reportedly issuing worthless checks in the United States. Multibank is one of several offshore banks that claimed to be or were previously registered in the Marshalls and are currently under federal investigation for possible illegal activities. Myra Arin, who came to the Marshalls last year while working for Multibank’s Mark Wellington, said her former boss is now in jail. She described Wellington as a “con artist.”
Public hearings were the main topic for conversation this week. It seems like everyone is satisfied with the government spending money for new airplanes and the
big copra landing craft. But consensus has it that the milk factory is a little sour. USDA milk is served at every school in the Marshalls now at breakfast and lunch and the kids love it. One of the old timers here suggested the government should operate an “iced tea with four spoons of sugar” factory. Minister of Health Services Kunar Abner and officials with the Sisters of Mercy signed a new hospital management contract in Majuro. Sisters of Mercy will be taking over administration of the new hospital when it opens later this year, and plan to have their first team of administrators arrive in the islands in early July.
a whole month. The rain filled to capacity the 448,000-gallon city catchment and Public Works eliminated water hours last Saturday. They went back into effect Friday. The Friends of Micronesia is a recently formed group of people interested in Micronesia. Many of them are returned Peace Corps Volunteers who spent several years there only to come back and find that most Americans are unaware even of its existence, let alone that its fate rests in the hands of their government. They hope to see, and help create, a new public awareness on the part of the American people concerning Micronesia and the patently colonialist administration of the islands by the US Office of Territories.

Journal 4/9/1993
Front Page headlines: Top — “Billfish Club’s President guarantees: You’ll get something.” Bottom — “Nitijela Speaker: We got something.”
The top headline referred to MBC President Dennis Reeder, who stated: “You may not catch the thousand-pounders here, but you’re just about guaranteed to catch something — a marlin, yellowfin, barracuda or skipjack — when you fish in the Marshalls. Our guys know where to land the fish.” This year MBC is organizing and hosting the first annual All-Micronesia Fishing Tournament.
The bottom headline story reported: On this bright, sunny morning, a brand new silver-grey Cherokee Jeep was given to the Nitijela by the People’s Republic of China. Resident Chinese Ambassador Zhou Jinming presented the gift to Speaker Kessai Note and Foreign Secretary Jiba Kabua.