Editor,

Bula Vinaka from Levuka.

Firstly my condolences to victims and families of the needless tragedy.

I have been following your coverage of the enquiry and commend your work. As a resident of Levuka and frequent passenger on the Ashika I am not surprised this tragedy occurred.

The question I ask is why has not the Patterson Brothers Shipping been called to the enquiry? Regardless of a sale "as is where is" the Ashika was as far as I can understand unfit for sea and impounded to the dock at the time of sale. It was also destined for the scrap heap as I understand.

Question one is how did it leave the dock in Fiji. Question two is if I sold a car destined to the junkyard to a neighbour knowing that my neighbour was going to take his family in the car do I not have some Moral explanation to make?

Vinaka

Mike Reid

raratabu [at] connect [dot] com [dot] fj