BY GEORGINA KEKEA
CHINA Harbour Engineering (SI) Company Ltd (CHEC) recently celebrated two occasions.
One for its third year in the Solomon Islands and the other is for the completion of the Transport Sector Flood Recovery Project.
Speaking on the occasion, Project Manager, Mr. Chen Xiongzheng says they have three projects in the Solomon Islands since 2015 and he thanked the Ministry of Infrastructure Development (MID), Asian Development Bank (ADB), SMEC, LBS and all those that have assisted CHEC to carry out its work in the Solomon Islands.
“We have tried our best and we tried our best to finish the project in time. Finally we have made it and we thank you all for the tremendous support,” Chen says.
Chen says with their operation here, they have been very pleased to pass on their skills to locals especially in the operations department.
“We hope that in the future they can use the skills they learnt to work in other projects in other companies for the prosperity and development of Solomon Islands.”
Chen says at the same time they have tried their best to full fill their social obligation in the local communities as well. Now that they have achieved their goal, they are quite happy to work further with the government.
Meanwhile Guadalcanal Premier, Anthony Veke says all the projects awarded to China Harbour are on Guadalcanal.
“As a government, Guadalcanal see road development as the most important infrastructure”.
Veke says his government believes it is infrastructure that can boost the economy that will ensure growth in the villages and local communities.
“We can use those infrastructures to transport copra, to transport timbers, cocoa into town. And I believe those are very important for my local people,” Veke said.
He further recommended CHEC to the national government for future infrastructural work in the country.
At the same time, Mr Moses Virivolomo, Permanent Secretary (PS) of Ministry of Civil Aviation and supervising PS of Ministry of Infrastructure Development (MID) said, Solomon Islands will benefit from bringing more competition in infrastructure construction.
He says the ministry should bring more companies to compete in this sector.
“There are different way of doing things. Only when we allow others to come in more ideas, more innovations, competition brings down prices and a country like Solomon Islands still needs to grow.”
Virivolomo thanked CHEC for the work done and also thanked stakeholders in the TSFRP.
The Transport Sector Flood Recovery Project (TSFRP) was to restore socio-economic activities impacted by extreme rainfall and flash flood to pre-flood conditions and to provide disaster resilient roads and bridges through ‘building back better’ by rehabilitating and improving prioritised assets along the North East and North West roads of Guadalcanal province.
TSFRP is implemented by the Central Project Implementation Unit on behalf of the Ministry of Infrastructure Development (MID) as the executing agency.
