SEM to bring cargo from Carteret

SARK SHIPPING has struck a deal with Sark Estate Management to bring cargo from the French port of Carteret.The agreement arose after the Brecqhou Warrior had to be taken out of service and Sark Shipping director Julie Mann told me earlier this week that they were asked to quote for the service and the quote was accepted.

It seems a little ironic to me that Chief Pleas went to the trouble of enacting legislation that could lead to the Brecqhou Warrior being stopped from bringing cargo to Sark and yet when the companies are allowed to negotiate freely between themselves - without political interference - a deal can be struck.

As I recall the situation, the legislation was enacted - according to the then Shipping Committee - to preserve Sark Shipping's monopoly on the Guernsey to Sark run and several people remarked at the time that the company's views were never made public. It's a pity that this was the case because had it been known then that the two companies were willing to talk and negotiate, then the somewhat acrimonious debate - and the legislation, for that matter - might well have proved unnecessary.

At the time of writing, Chief Pleas is sitting and it will be interesting to see if Development Control Committee chairman Tony Dunks will indeed withdraw the controversial Housing Occupancy Law and return after further public consultation at the Easter meeting in April.

Conseiller Dunks indicated that this might well be the case when, to his credit, he said as much at a hastily-convened public meeting on Tuesday evening, at which further concerns about the draft law's implications were voiced.

The DCC chairman's willingness to involve the public has seen his stock rising among residents, and particularly those who feel that the legislature has become little more than a rubber stamp during the first two years of its newly-found democratic existence.

That said, it gives me no pleasure at all to report that - just as happened two years ago when the fledgling democratic assembly elected its first set of committees - the system used proved yet again to be totally flawed.

In January 2009, when reporting on those first elections, I pointed out that in certain cases some conseillers had voted by a show of hands more times than there were committee vacancies and suggested that the only way to ensure that this did not happen was to hold secret ballots in contested elections.

I'd have thought that it was simplicity itself to spell out to our elected representatives that if there were two vacancies on a particular committee and four candidates, then they could only vote for two of the four and not, as I saw one conseiller do, vote for all four.

This year, I took note of the number of votes cast as they were read out by Seneschal Reg Guille and in three of the six contested elections - for three of what are arguably the most important Chief Pleas committees, General Purposes and Advisory, Finance and Commerce and Development Control - more votes were cast than were available to the voters.

To illustrate the point, there were three vacancies on GP&A and therefore with 26 conseillers present, the total number of votes cast should not have exceeded 78, yet 92 votes were cast. In the case of Finance and Commerce, the one vacancy meant that no more than 26 should have been cast, but there were 33. And with Development Control, the two vacancies meant that 52 votes in total was the maximum, but the candidates between them polled 54 votes.

It's not rocket science, but despite me identifying the flaw in procedure two years ago, the same discredited system was used last Saturday morning and, in the case of the three instances I have identified, a distorted result ensued.

I also happen to think that, particularly in a small community such as this, a vote by secret ballot would quite probably ensure a truer picture of voters' wishes.

No doubt some people will have something to say about that.

* The email address for comment is fallesark@sark.net.