Word: nauru
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There's a whisper of hope on the stricken Pacific island of Nauru these days, and it's coming from a 35-year-old Harvard graduate named David Adeang. Since becoming Finance Minister in the new government of President Ludwig Scotty, the popular Adeang has been fighting to revive what was once one of the world's wealthiest countries. As a young boy, Adeang used to watch the country's fleet of new planes roll up and down the island's runway, and its cargo ships race in and out of port. Now Nauru can only afford...
...billion has been liquidated, including the shock sale of the nation's proudest status symbol, the 51-storey Nauru House tower in central Melbourne. Receivers appointed to recover a $A263 million debt to the General Electric Corporation sold the property last month. Adeang, one of several young, well-educated reformers in the government elected in an October landslide, says most of Nauru's 10,000 residents have finally accepted that change must happen: "We have said there is no other way but reform...
Adeang's recent budget foreshadows the pain to come, although there will be funding gains for education and health. The "most difficult budget any government on Nauru has ever had to deliver to Parliament," according to Adeang, it will impose big spending cuts and new fees, including a 10% customs duty on all but basic food imports. The aim is to end successive budget deficits by 2005-06 - an ambitious goal that will depend on finding new revenue sources. Secondary mining of phosphate deposits may be possible, but delayed trials have never gone ahead. To make matters worse, the government...
Classrooms on Nauru need pens and books, the hospital is short of equipment and there are fears the electricity supply could collapse when Australian-donated fuel runs out in March. About 1,300 public servants are now receiving the $A100 a fortnight salary, but thousands of Nauruans who work for state-owned enterprises haven't been paid for months. Adeang constantly has to explain to people queueing at his office why the government can't give them the $A30 they need for a bag of rice. "There are so many expectations on us to come up with some solutions." Money...
...country, Adeang says, is "at rock bottom," and it may be years before it achieves a solid economic footing. In the meantime, the help of friends is vital. Australia's parliamentary secretary for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Bruce Billson, says Nauru's largest neighbor welcomes the budget measures and is optimistic that the Scotty government will abandon the financial recklessness of the past: "There has never been such a sense of shared purpose." An Australian finance team is in Nauru helping to audit its messy dealings, while two Australian Federal Police members have arrived to assist the local force...