Electricity transformers being loaded onto the Sark Viking on their way to a charitable project in Zambia. (0644868)
ELECTRICAL equipment no longer required by Sark Electricity is on its way to Zambia. Two large reels of cable and a number of transformers – they are those big metal things seen on many of Sark’s roads which, to engineering illiterates like me, look like huge radiators – were loaded on board the Sark Viking earlier this week.
David Gordon Brown of Sark Electricity told me that they were being given to the North West Zambia Development Trust, a charitable organisation that has recently completed a hydro-electric scheme in that region of the country. The objective has been to remove dependency on diesel generators and fuel which has to be imported from South Africa.
He said that once in Zambia the transformers and cable will help provide a constant and relatively cheap source of power to hospitals, schools, whole villages and businesses, as well as providing work in an area of high unemployment.
‘Without us doing this the equipment would simply have been scrapped,’ said David.
‘The fact that we have been able to get it to Guernsey has shown Sark at its best because we don’t have the gear to transport it to the harbour.
‘Sark Builders stepped in and then Sark Shipping said that they would get it to Guernsey on the Viking without charge. Everyone has helped and we all hope that it gets to Zambia as soon as possible and continues its useful working life.’
More about the trust, its achievements and objectives can be found at www.nwzdt.org.
For those interested in Sark affairs, yesterday evening was likely to be just a little busy. Chief Pleas members Diane Baker and Helen Plummer were due to start the ball rolling with their chat about being a member of the government – and the work it entails – to prospective candidates in the all-important December election.
It was always envisaged that the 28 seats which will comprise the new Chief Pleas was the minimum number considered necessary to provide enough people to sit on the committees which do most of the work of the legislature. Put bluntly, that really means that there is no room for passengers.
The second meeting has been called by Chief Pleas’ Shipping Committee and will provide a long-awaited opportunity to see the Isle of Sark Shipping Company’s accounts for the period ending a year ago next Tuesday.
The meeting is being dubbed a shareholders’ meeting which, according to the definition of those who called it, means that only Chief Pleas members can speak and ask questions while the rest of us are required to sit and listen.
I doubt very much that the company’s file at the Financial Services Commission lists its shareholders as being Chief Pleas members, so why they get to talk and other taxpayers don’t is a mystery, but I daresay there will be more important questions to be asked than that.
It promises to be interesting, to say the least, although how such a gathering can approve accounts which 48 hours before the meeting had not been distributed remains another mystery, for I doubt they are all qualified accountants.
The email address for comment is fallesark@sark.net.
Article posted on 26th September, 2008 - 2.00pm
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