FINN (COM) Daily Record: 20 November 2003

By J. Brock (FINN)

Following on from H. E. the Governor Mr. Pearce’s announcement at the Sea Cadet’s annual inspection in October, Commodore Roger Parker RNR, confirmed by letter that Krysteen Ormond has been singled out to receive the honour for a year. At the regular weekly meeting of the Stanley Sea Cadets "T/S Endurance" H. E. the Governor Mr Pearce presented the award.

"I know that it was really quite a difficult decision to make because there are experienced and very talented members of the Sea Cadets, he said prior to presenting the award in front of Krysteen’s parents, and the other Sea Cadets.

Krysteen joined the unit on the 2^nd of February 2000 and became a cadet on the 20^th of February that year. And, she was promoted, then to Ordinary Cadet on the 2^nd of February 2001, Able Cadet on the 9^th of March 2002 and Leading Cadet on the 10^th of March 2003. A step forward every year. She gained her qualifications in Sailing, Cook-steward, Electrical, Writer/Stores, Seamanship and Swimming. Krysteen is also a very valuable member of the Sea Cadets.

As the first in the post, Krysteen will serve less than a year because she is due to go to school in the UK next September. During her stint as Governor’s Cadet, she will be joining him on a number of occasions throughout the year, the first of which will be the Battle day ceremony on the 8^th of December.

As you are probably aware Bernie Lang is employed in Treasury as an accountant and I should be grateful if you would include an article in your newspapers to cover the following item:

On Monday, 17 October, His Excellency The Governor, kindly hosted a reception at Government House and presented Bernie with her final examination certificate from The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA).

The reception was attended by Treasury staff and partners and Bernie's family.

Bernie started work in the Treasury in July 1996 as a clerk. At the end of 1997 she started her accountancy studies and successfully completed the foundation course by distance learning. Bernie commenced her professional training in Scotland in 1998 and returned last year. She passed the final examination in June 2003.

As far as I am aware Bernie is the first employee of government who has gained a formal accountancy qualification. This significant achievement was won after several years of dedicated hard work and study. We are all very proud of her. It also represents a sound return on a considerable investment made by government. In particular thanks must go to the guidance and assistance provided by my Deputies past and present who all helped to make this a success story.

Please note that the letters CPFA after Bernie's name stands for Chartered Public Finance Accountant.

I attach a photograph of the presentation taken by Dave Tyler (Internal Auditor) for you to use.

Regards

Derek Howatt
Financial Secretary

Note: A full story with photo will be put on FINN and SARTMA

PRISON FOR TAMAR CHIEF OFFICER:

Tamar Chief Officer, Michael Taylor was sent to prison for 28 days today for head-butting a fellow crew member and not mentioning previous convictions on his work permit application. Taylor was also ordered to pay £100.00 compensation to the man he head-butted, Brian Newman. The Court heard that he had head-butted Mr. Newman at closing time in Deanos on the 24^th of October after an argument over shore leave. Taylor had been drinking Special Brew and double Vodkas and admitted he had been very drunk at the time of the incident. After Police had arrested him, they discovered from Interpol that he had previous convictions, including one for manslaughter, which he had not mentioned on his work permit application. Taylor said he had only received two pages of the application form, which did not include the section on criminal convictions. Senior magistrate, Nick Sanders, said he had to accept this as there was no evidence it was untrue but Taylor had signed the final declaration, which asked him to declare any convictions. Taylor’s work permit has already been taken away by Immigration. Mr. Sanders said sentencing was made more difficult because Community Service was no longer a possibility. He said that in the circumstances, a prison sentence was the only option available and sentenced Taylor to 21 days for the assault and 7 days for the Immigration Offence.

PHONE-IN:

There was plenty of discussion during last night’s FIBS phone-in about the shape the Government should take in the future. Chief Executive, Chris Simpkins, and Cllrs. Richard Cockwell (RC) and Mike Summers (MS) took calls from members of the public and the concerns they have about the way the Government works. A call from Barry Elsby (BE) sparked discussion between Lisa Riddell (LR) and Mike Summers on the controversial Mike Bingham case.

BE: We looked at the case of Mike Bingham recently where the Judge had said illegal and unconstitutional decisions were made. Who is going to take responsibility for that? And, I think if people are going to take responsibility for a department, they have a duty to be prepared to form their swords, if you like, if things go wrong.

LR: Absolutely, in fact, thinking about what you said, there, Berry. At a public meeting last night, we talked about the Mike Bingham case and Councillors seemed to think that nobody was responsible and nobody was to blame and hadn’t done anything wrong. I seem to gather that.

MS: O, come on. That’s a bit rich. I know you want a debate but that is a bit rich. What we actually said is have you, in fact, read the full judgement? There is a certain amount of danger in leaping to some conclusion on a rather sort of slim statement from the judge. I don’t think I want to say much more than that other than members of Council do not feel that they have been severely reprimanded by the judge. We need to read the full judgement to get the full force of what he was thinking and what he intends to say at the end of the day. You can try and stimulate some argument if you wish but until the full judgement is produced, and the judge comments on all aspects of the case, and who was culpable in which areas then I think it would be premature to leap to conclusions.

HARBOUR NEWS:

The Endeavour came alongside FIPASS this morning at 1000 with 2 passengers and 68 crew. One hundred and three passengers are due to embark tomorrow. Professor Multinofski came in last night and is due alongside FIPASS later this evening. Her passengers are due in on Saturday’s LanChile flight. The Scolloper, Holberg is at anchor in Berkley Sound sheltering from the weather and the bulk carrier, John-P is also in Berkley Sound.

FISHING LICENCES OFFERED:

Around £16Million worth of fishing licence offers have been made this week for the first season of 2004. The Fisheries Department says the number of offers made is typical for a first season. They include 120 for Illex jiggers, 26 combined Finfish/Illex licences, 17 for Restricted Finfish and 16 for Loligo. I asked Director of fisheries, John Barton (JB), if it was looking to be a good year in the Fishery.

JB: Yes. It’s reasonably healthy. There is still quite a long way to go in the process because even when we make the licence offers, there are still often quite a few changes in the actual take-up of licences before it’s all finalised.

SG: When you talk about the first season, when does that start?

JB: It’s effectively the first six months of the year from January to June. But within that there are different seasons covering various licence types so the Loligo Squid fishery will be from the 1^st of March to the middle of April and the big Illex Squid fishery licence period actually starts from the middle of February through to the middle of June. But it very much depends on the year – when the Squid come into the zone in February or whether they wait until early March to come.

SG: Those who have been offered licences now have one week to accept and a further week to arrange payment of a 10% deposit.

A NEW POST:

A new post has been created in the Department of Agriculture. Neil Judd, who is currently Wool advisor, will become Senior Agricultural Advisor from 01 January. The creation of the post does not increase the size of the Department as it replaces the position of Senior Scientist, which came free earlier this year. Neil’s job will be to manage staff and leave research, development and programmes to improve the profitability of livestock reduction.

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