Tristan : TRISTAN ADMINISTRATOR'S OLD YEAR'S NIGHT SPEECH
Submitted by Tristan Times (Sarah Glass) 08.01.2011 (Article Archived on 24.01.2011)

First of all many thanks for coming to the house this evening to help celebrate Old Year’s Night. It’s great to see you all here and great to see that some of you have even dressed up for the evening!

I want to start by congratulating Lorraine on the receipt of her MBE, which was announced in the New Year’s Honours list this morning. This is a great achievement and due recognition for all the work (paid and unpaid) Lorraine does for the island community including one of the most difficult jobs as Treasurer (managing the money), managing the island store and her police and immigration work plus everything else she does. Well done!

Marina and I also want to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to the whole community for welcoming us here and for all of your kindness helping us settle in but also for the wonderful gifts we have received be they vegetables, fish, meat or xmas presents. It really has been extraordinary. Thank you.

I also want to pay tribute to the Chief Islander and your Island Council. They all do a fantastic (and unpaid) job on your behalf. The decisions they have to take are not always easy and they will not always be popular but it is clear to me that they take the job very seriously and have the interests of the Islanders and the island’s future in their hearts. It is important that we all recognise this and give them the support they need to take and carry  through these decisions…

A big thank you is also due to all of those who work in the government departments who deliver services to us all throughout the year often in difficult circumstances. This includes all those who work in fisheries, conservation, communications, PWD, the school, the hospital, agriculture, the post office, the museum, the tourist centre, the administration and the Police. We do appreciate it.

As you know we only arrived here three months ago and it would not be appropriate or right for me to comment on events before I arrived so I will just look back to September and look forward over the next year.

I knew before I came that there were two main priorities: the harbour and the finances….and those two issues remain my main priority.

HARBOUR

On the harbour progress has been made. We owe DfID a big thank you for mobilising the engineers to come here so quickly and for officials and ministers in London to consider their proposals so quickly…take it from me…it is very unusual to get 6 million pound of tax payers money authorised so quickly so we are lucky…especially in the current financial climate in the UK.

The last I heard was that the Baltic Trader will be leaving Cape Town around the middle of January and will be here until early March. There will be a team of 18 contractors and engineers here and they will be placing 50 ten tonne dolosse on the outside of thr western breakwater.

We look forward to welcoming and working with the team when they arrive.

FINANCES

Now the painful bit…money. The simple truth is that we pay out more than we pay in. It does not require an economist to work out that this is not sustainable! It is true that the new lobster concession should bring in more and we are doing all we can to increase revenue in the tourism, stamps and coins sectors but if we are to avoid insolvency (and that is not a pleasant place to be…I promise), we need to cut our outgoings.

That is why this year the Council took the brave decision to cut departmental budgets by between 10-20% and increase the revenue earning departments estimates by between 7 – 15% . We think we can deliver this without making people redundant but we are going to need your help to help us (and heads of departments) meet these challenging targets..and that means cutting waste, doing  more with less and taking care of the things we own and maintain. We all need to do our part.

On a brighter note I honestly believe that if we put the right measures in place we can reverse the decline…but it will not be easy…just look at the UK and the steps they are having to take to tackle the deficit. There is no reason why we should be immune from the global economy..after all we do benefit from it!

On a more positive note, we had a really good visit from Ovenstone. Talks were constructive and I think both sides now understand far better where our challenges and opportunities are. They told us about their new markets in Australia and elsewhere and plans for the new ship in 2016. We also talked about the MSC accreditation, MRAG and EU market access..James and his team are making progress on all of these. The concession agreement is a good agreement and recognises that this is very much a two-way partnership.

LOOKING FORWARD

Looking to next year we want to explore opportunities to send water back to Cape Town for bottling and selling with a longer term aim of getting a plant on Tristan itself.

We also want to get the rubbish dump cleaned up and Ovenstone will be assisting us with this. Cutting equipment paid for by them arrives in January

And finally they want to help us forge links with South Africa for the purpose of opening up opportunities for island children and adults to take advantage of some off island training. Jim has already started this and his team will be taking this forward in the new year.

     So we have lots of challenges over the next year!

Finally I want to say a big thanks you to Beverley and the team on the food and drinks for organising tonight’s reception and thank you also to everyone who has sent down food for tonight’s party. We do appreciate it.

We both wish you all the best for 2011 and hope you thoroughly enjoy your old year’s night and invite you to join us in a toast to HM the Queen and to Tristan.

Cheers