BY BARNABAS MANEBONA

TARO Station’s residents at Choiseul Province have raised concern over drunkards usually polluting the Taro airfield.

A local resident and rest house owner Mr Patson Pitabule speaking on behalf of locals to Island Sun said it has come to notice from observation that local drunkards are usually polluting Taro airfield with their empty cans of beer and their boxes giving a hard time for Solomon Airlines Agent to clean their rubbish up.

Respect to the airfield is what they are seeking for according to the locals.

“We call on the residents of Taro including visitors to respect the airfield and its surroundings so that the airfield will have a clean environment site,” urged Pitabule.

He added that such attitude is to avoid accidents as well.

The locals are now suggesting for a security personal for the airfield.

BY SAMIE WAIKORI

AUKI

HAUKONA village in central highlands of Are’are will soon receive its water supply under the RWASH programme.

Chief Environmental Health Inspector of Malaita Province, Ms Gloria Siwainao told this paper that materials for construction of the new water supply are on site as work is expected to commence soon.

She said yesterday that as part of the work a team from her office will leave for Haukona village very soon for a week of pre-construction workshop training to the villagers.

Siwainao said the training is purposely to let the villagers understand their responsibilities or role they expect to play during and after the execution of the project.

She said the training is very important as one main focus area it looks at is to allow villagers to manage the project.

Siwainao said they will largely look at sustainability of the water supply project to maintain its value or usefulness in a long run.

She said there were scenarios been experienced by her office that sustainability is very lucking with many water supply projects in the province.

Adding that as a result people usually tend to seek assistance for maintenance of their water supply sometimes not really long after the completion of the project.

Siwainao reiterated that the training was very important as it will allow those will benefit from the project to understand their responsibility on the project.

She said the workshop is expected soon and as a long as it completes the implementation of the water will begin.

Siwainao said Haukona water supply project was one among three other water supply projects her office expects to complete this year.

She said the other projects were, a water supply for Riaa’oa’o village in East Are Are and Elite village in Small Malaita.

Siwainao said the project was funded EU through the RWASH programme under the Ministry of health and Medical Service.

BY ALFRED PAGEPITU

GIZO

WESTERN province needs to improve access to health and medical services for women and girls in the province, according to a report.

According to the Western Province Women’s Empowerment and Transformation policy report, the province had 95 percent health coverage until 2015 and then where on average, 28 percent of health facilities in the province were closed.

Limited number of trained health workers including specialised doctors, the number of health facilities needing repair, lack of necessary medical equipment, poor conditions of health workers houses, inadequate funding targeting health services has deprived women and men of the province access to basic health services.

Therefore, due to cultural norms and expectation including gender roles of women and men, women tend to have more concerns and face more barriers to accessing basic health services and even more so for women living in the rural areas.

Problems reported by women in accessing health facilities range from concern that there will be no female health workers about 60 percent of rural women compared to 51 percent of urban women.

BY ELLISON VAHI

FORMER speaker for Makira Ulawa Province Mr Kaea Goldie has voiced concern on regarding to Provincial gov’t act section 15 sub clause F, G and I, with regards to the disqualification of members.

Speaking to the Island Sun, Kaea said that by looking at the section (15) has shown a very very silent resignation.

He said that with Common sense it has clearly state that once these people wants to enter National or Provincial, they must resign from their sits, because they are holding public offices.

He adds that What really or has practised since then is that provincial member in particular, once they intend to contest for the national or provincial election, they just walk in without resignation and whilst once they lose the election they then still return to their sits.

Kaea further voiced that if provincial assembly members are holding public office, ‘why did they not resign before joining the election?’

Kaea calls on to the ministry of home affairs to ensure that provincial assembly members who are intending to contend election must resign their sits before contending for the national elections.