Katoro community lauds Ghiro’s leadership

Unloading of rolls of polythane pipes for East Makira Constituency water supply projects.

A new water supply from their constituency office ends Katoro village’s four decades of collecting water from nearby streams and dirty water during rainy seasons.

Since the resettlement of Katoro village on Wainoni in 1978 this community had bathed and collected water for drinking and cooking from a nearby stream that borders their village and the renowned Wainoni Roman Catholic Mission Station.

And the frequent long rainy periods that runs almost all year round on Makira each year meant that most of the communities that are dependent on streams and rivers for their basic water needs would always endure thick muddy water conditions and Katoro village is no exception.

Speaking to the Government Communications Unit officer during the handing over of their new water supply, funded and built by the East Makira Constituency, Chief Pastor Philip Marupa explained that he had almost given up hope of ever finding any assistance to build a water supply system for his people.

“I am a very determined person so I have approached every possible organisations and government authorities in KiraKira and Honiara but on each occasion my hopes kept diminishing,” Marupa explained.

He claimed that for those few bodies who did respond positively to his request about five groups came to his village and inspected their water source, however, these groups’ foreign engineers flatly failed the water source as being technically inadequate to provide a viable and sustainable water supply system.

“I am someone who does not take no for an answer and so I kept on fighting to find any other good Samaritan out there who would help my community overcome its water predicament,” Marupa added.

Thus, it was in one of his visits to a government department in Honiara that Marupa was told to approach his Member of Parliament on his community’s quest for a water supply.

“It was on this occasion that I approached Hon. Alfred Ghiro my Member of Parliament for East Makira Constituency and amazingly as if my meeting was a preordained divine intervention, Ghiro assured me of his assistance straight away because he had already in place plans to focus more on water supply throughout the constituency,” Marupa claimed.

The turn of events was a sigh of great relief for Katoro community because a couple of months after Marupa voiced his people’s dilemma, tonnes of materials funded by the Constituency for the water supply arrived and the East Makira Constituency’s (EMC) RWASH team were promptly on the ground as well to build a water dam and construct the whole water supply system which took only two weeks to complete in June.

Marupa could not hide his profound satisfaction and accomplishment of his efforts which were wholly accommodated by Hon Alfred Ghiro and the EMC RWASH team.

He however lamented that many of the old people who started resettlement of Katoro village and had longed for a proper water supply system have passed on over the years but it was a fortunate moment for one old woman, the only remaining person of the first re-settlers in 1978, who had lived to see the water supply system build from start to finish and has briefly used it before she passed away just two days before the official handing over ceremony on August 29, 2018.

Meanwhile as a result of Ghiro’s deep concern for his people’s plight, seldom does one receive all the praises, compliments and assurances of strong unwavering support from entire communities at one particular occasion, however distant that may be, it actually was an exceptional phenomena for the Member of Parliament for East Makira Constituency, Alfred Ghiro who has deservedly earned all the plaudits from his people of Katoro and the communities of Ward 12 on Wainoni.

As explicitly expressed by chiefs of Taretarena, Aparoro, Naripo (NATS Communities) and Katoro community respectively they have all the confidence, trust and believe in their current leader Ghiro that he is astutely capable of looking after them and he has already led by example many times over with the water supply, solar lighting of their villages, church buildings, literacy centre and many other assistances that have brought meaningful changes to their lives.

George Mackenzie Siapu

GCU

Discover more from Theislandsun

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading