The Coffee and Controversy has farewelled one of its most outspoken, dedicated and critic, Tess Newton Cain as she has appeared for the last time on the show yesterday at the Lava Lounge.

The panellists who of course have been participating in the show for the last 11 months were Shaun Gilchrist from Trilogy IT, Glen Craig from Pacific Advisory,Tess Newton Cain at TNC Consultant, Daily Post Media Director Dan McGarry and host, Mark O’Brien.

A little background on Tess Newton Cain (though there’s a whole lot more), she has lived in Vanuatu since 1997 and became a citizen in 2015. She is a former lecturer in law at USP and is the principal of TNC Pacific Consulting. She has worked in a number of Pacific island countries and will continue to contribute to Pacific policy development at national, sub-regional and regional levels from her new base in Brisbane.

As it was her last appearance on the show, Tess Newton Cain was offered a few minutes by Mr O’Brien to relate a story that shed some lights on donor aids and why countries like Vanuatu and other Pacific islands that are making use of these not to take it for granted because it will not always be around and to give her last shots to issues affecting the country.

“Two years ago in Port Moresby, the UN decided to do something to help women who are harassed by and attacked on public transports and decided to have a ‘Safe Meri’bus and they said that they would have this service just for women and children and it would be free and immediately i was upset about this,” she said.

‘Why is this bus service free? this isn’t about women who can’t afford busfares, this is about women who want to be safe on the bus, if there is no bus fares who is going to pay the bus driver, who is going to put petrol in the bus and how will they maintain the bus but the UN have already thought about what to do and wrote to DFAT.’

Tess Newton Cain said that the UN has paint a good picture about UN to DFAT and so DFAT agreed to give a safe bus program.

“Fast forward, UN have kick started a campaign to keep this program going because there is no more money from DFAT and what have they done first of all they have brought in two second hand buses from Brisbane into Port Moresby for this service, so in development terms we called ’stuff we don’t want’, Brisbane did not want the bus and send them to Port Moresby.’

‘And now the lady from UN said that it is hard to maintain buses from Brisbane in Port Moresby, we can’t get the parts, it’s too expensive and so they are having a campaign to buy a new bus.’

‘And now they are going to charge bus fares, so there you go, that’s the story.’ READ MORE

SOURCE: VANUATU DAILY POST