MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Penguin News Update.

Headlines:
Defence issues on the agenda for visitors; ?At risk' can keep cards; New Education boss; Tourism resignation; Seatbelts on all roads.

Defence issues on the agenda for visitors

Chief of General Staff, General Sir Mike Jackson signs the visitors book at Gilbert House during a meeting with councillors and His Excellency the Governor last week. Both General Jackson and the Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram made short visits to the Islands last week during which they had the chance to take a close up look at the operations of the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force in the Falklands. Both were full of praise for the professionalism and enthusiasm of their troops. Full story on page 2

?At risk' can keep cards

THE controversy over the proposed withdrawal of card operated electricity meters may be at an end. The government has announced that ?at risk' members of the community - such as those who receive welfare assistance and all old age pensioners (if they wish) - are to be allowed to keep using their card meters. Any other customers may apply to remain on the card pre-payment system and their application will be "assessed on merit" the government says. The purpose of this is to reduce the number of card meters to a manageable amount for an interim period. Making the announcement, Councillor Richard Cockwell said the Public Works Department (PWD) is "fully aware" of the difficulties the withdrawal of card facilities for payment of electricity will cause to some people and is keen to make the system, "...as easy as possible, but also fair to all consumers." He outlined the reasons why the PWD was having to withdraw the card system. "Firstly, reprogramming card meters in some cases has technical problems; some card meters are failing and will therefore have to be converted to credit mode. "Secondly PWD has problems in some households in accessing meters for reprogramming, meaning that they are still on old tariff rates. This is grossly unfair to customers with credit meters who have been paying the increased tariff since December, and to those who have been co-operative, whilst many card customers are still paying the pre-December tariff. This is totally unacceptable." Additionally, simply charging a different price for cards to compensate - as some members of the public have suggested - does not work, "...as there are legal difficulties involved in the meter displaying credit at a different rate to that charged for the card." A petition lobbying the government to allow the continued use of card-operated meters has been circulated around Stanley over the past week. Yesterday, petition organiser Trudi Felton welcomed the government's announcement which she described as, "absolutely brilliant news." She said she was prompted to organise the petition, "...because there are people who are living from hand to mouth and the thought of a great big bill coming in every three months must be really, really worrying, particularly for the OAPs. A lot of them pick up a £5 electricity card as they collect their weekly pension payment - it's a good way of paying as you go."

New Education boss

THE new Director of Education is keen to meet children who are learning through Camp Education to see, "...what they think about it." Barbara Booth (above) has been in her new job only a matter of days and admits she is currently finding her feet, but she is looking forward to meeting the students in the schools and to travelling to Camp to meet students there. While admitting she has never dealt with, "anything exactly the same as Camp Education," Mrs. Booth has worked with education in isolated communities in the North East of England. She will be visiting Camp schools and students over the next few weeks: "I can see it from this end, but I also want to see it from the other end and find out what the children think about it." When asked for her view on the problems the Falklands are having with a small number of disruptive students causing problems in the schools, Mrs. Booth is cautious: "I won't jump to any conclusions about the extent of the problem - if there is one..." However, she does favour "inclusion over exclusion", an approach which was being adopted in Portsmouth, where she was based for five years before coming to the Falklands. "The way it was beginning to be tackled was through an inclusion strategy so that children were maintained as far as was possible in the mainstream school and not moved out to pupil referral units; special schools were becoming much more designated for only those children that had really complex needs. "That was the way things were going - like here, exclusion was the last resort." She said it is essential to look at what is right for individual children: "Just having a system is not going to meet the needs of every child. You've really got to sort out the appropriate approach for each child..." Mrs. Booth's initial contract is for a period of two to three years.

Tourism resignation

CONNIE STEVENS, Director of Tourism for the Falkland Islands Tourist Board has tendered her resignation from her position. Councillor Ian Hansen made the announcement late yesterday afternoon. He commented, "Connie has developed a number of key projects during her period in office and has been responsible for a significant amount of new land-based business and she has been particularly successful in generating a much higher profile for the Islands with overseas tour operators and consumers. "Most recently, Connie has just secured ?86,000 from a European organization to fund 12 people from the Falklands to visit Iceland on a ?study tour', to assist with the future development of tourism businesses in the Islands." Councillor Hansen said Mrs. Stevens' "innovative approach" to marketing has resulted in, "...a number of high profile initiatives overseas that have raised the profile of the Islands and more importantly, have secured new business, resulting in more visitors to the Falkland Islands." He added, "I and all the directors of the Tourist Board wish to thank her for all her hard work and immense commitment to the industry and for her unfaltering promotion of the Falkland Islands to new markets and new operators."

Seatbelts on all roads

LEGISLATIVE Council plans to pass a law extending the seatbelt law to all roads, including undesignated Camp tracks, at their meeting in May. There is a "very strong consensus" among councillors that it is the sensible route to take, Councillor Mike Summers reported. "It seems to have, as far as we can tell, very wide public support and it makes sense, therefore, to get on and do it." He said the implementation of the law will be an education process: "We haven't really got into the seatbelt mentality in the Falklands; making sure that the police begin to enforce the seatbelt law, talking to people about having appropriate seatbelts in their vehicles, and giving them advice and time to do it makes sense." The government hopes this will mean that drivers on West Falklands will buckle up too despite there being no policing of the law. Councillor Summers commented, "We have no plans for there to be regular police patrols on the West to make people wear their seatbelts but we would hope that people will see that it is the sensible thing to do."

Subscribe to Penguin News online and save!

For more information and to subscribe to this full colour version of Penguin Newsgo to www.penguin-news.com(Terms and conditions apply)