BY BARNABAS MANEBONA

SEVEN million dollar budget for the upcoming Melanesian Arts and Culture Festival (MACFest) to be hosted in the country this year is only captured in the tourism ministry’s own budget.

$12million bid for the festival, being one of the new bids the ministry has in the recurrent budget, is unsuccessful.

Member of Parliament for Aoke Langalanga Hon Mathew Wale during the recent Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) enquiry to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism questioned the Permanent Secretary (PS) of the ministry if there is the possibility to still successfully host the MACFest.

In response, PS Andrew Nihopara said because of the development budget and other charges cut of only $10 Million by the National Government for the ministry, it gives them no option but to down scale priorities for this year.

“We will be doing scaling down of the money if it has to go down to the mode of just hosting the MACFest,” said Nihopara.

“As the founding member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), that obligation is upon us to deliver on.

“This is why our ministry feels strongly to find some money within our budget through reprioritising our projects despite our bid did not go through.

“We have set up a committee and we are looking at constantly readjusting our planned programmes so that it fits in with the budget we have available.”

Having said that, the PS said they are also seeking assistance from the business community.

“We will be talking to them and also we will take a proposal to our development partners as well to see where they could assist in which we are identifying the key areas for that one,” said Nihopara.

Given the budget that they have now, PS Nihopara however assured that they will not bow down to it to affect their plans.

Calculations of around 150 thousand air visitors this year by the ministry would be putting the revenue generating capacity and capability of the tourism industry up above with other industry sectors.

Something the PS said they want to aspire is to develop the plan to get up there. Though the airlines, Visitors Bureau and the private sector are their key partners, most importantly they need the government drive in this.

“Just by looking at the reduction of the budget that we got in 2017, it is important for the committee (PAC) to note down that significant reductions in some of the Divisional Budget Heads and the relocation of budgeted funds for development to other projects by the ministry is due to the reprioritising exercise we are taking to ensure that we execute some of our priority programmes within the budget given,” said Nihopara.

“That translates into the priorities this year on what we want to do as a Ministry in terms of our work plans, so hosting the sixth Melanesian Arts and Cultural Festival is a priority that we have as a Ministry.”

BY LORETTA BRIGIDIA MANELE

A number of best students vying for the Taiwan scholarships have been interviewed last week, it is reported.

This is according to Taiwan Embassy’s Deputy Counselor, Mr Oliver Weng who said the interview brought forth many talented students.

“Most of them told me that they knew the educational environment in Taiwan is very good and can provide them with lots of vision and knowledge. They are eager to go to Taiwan for further studies.”

He stated that while some of them were a bit nervous and shy during the interview they excelled in general speaking.

Weng expressed that during the course of the interview he told the students the benefits, requirements and application procedures of the Taiwan scholarship.

In addition, he emphasised that the purpose of the scholarship is to help Solomon Islands young people further their education.

“We hope the recipients will come back to serve Solomon Islands when they complete study in Taiwan.”

He furthered that this year the Taiwan scholarships have increased from 10 to 15 and noted that recipients will be made known sometime in June or early July this year.

“This year we increase the Scholarship recipients from 10 to 15 because the ROC (Taiwan) President Dr Tsai Ing-wen promised to assist Solomon Islands in higher education during her visit last November.”

THE Holy Cross parish youths had a successful Easter camp at Holy Cross Cathedral during the Holy week session.

They were involved in an Easter liturgy and enacted the Passion of Christ on Good Friday with other programmes in the Easter Triduum.

During their camp the youth executives organised some Easter spiritual and physical activities like praying, sharing of Easter reflection and meditation for the youth members to participate with the Easter camp theme: My world His creation; and the activities started after the Easter Sunday holy mass.

The team colours were blue knights, white dove, super red and Greenleaf.

Volleyball and futsal plus other games were played to enjoy the Easter programme with the rising of the Lord Jesus on Easter Sunday.

The activities continued to the night with the Easter queen show and other social entertainment programmes.

The spiritual and social activities was to help the young people in their talents and skills in sports and to mobilise them to continue in Church activities and to fully understand the four sessions in the Catholic Church.

Mr Peter Hasi the chairman of Holy Cross parish youth thanked the youths for availing themselves for the Easter camp and participate in Easter Triduum programmes.

He also thanked the parents, parishioners, business companies and individuals for supporting their camp.

The camp was successfully ended with a picnic at Lela beach in west Honiara on Easter Monday with games and refreshment; and the youths really enjoyed it, and look forward for their yearly upcoming programmes.

By JB Epalle Kulisuia

Catholic Media

BY LYNTON AARON FILIA

THE Rapid Employment Project (REP) touches the heart of communities in Honiara through infrastructure projects which benefit many.

As of today REP has already completed 49 community access infrastructure subprojects consisting of 41 Jacob’s ladders and eight stream crossings/footbridges around Honiara.

Few communities in Guadalcanal are part of the infrastructure development.

REP Project Manager, Mr Salvador Jiao said, “The project’s Rapid Employment Scheme (RES) now generated nearly 800,000 paid labour days (over half are women) and provided short-term employment to 13,000 people (including 6,900 women) in Honiara since the project began in 2010.”

The Pre-Employment Training (PET) has trained about 12,000 participants, and provided one on one coaching services to about 1,700 persons, he adds.

Jiao said REP which is supported by the World Bank and shall close by the end of 2018, but preparations to commence with its successor project called Community Access and Urban Services Enhancement (CAUSE) Project are now well underway.

Building on the original parent project (REP), CAUSE will cover Honiara and additional urban and peri-urban locations in Guadalcanal, Malaita, and Western provinces, Jiao said.

He adds, the project has been designed building on REP’s proven track record and the experience of the implementing agencies, HCC and MID, in partnership with GPA, MPA and WPA.

He reveals the World Bank-IDA has initially committed US$15 million in grant funds to finance CAUSE.

BY BARNABAS MANEBONA

CALL continues from the community at Northwest Choiseul for a completion report from the MPA of Varisi Lavata, Ward 12, over Tutu’s aid post project.

According to Mr Nerio Ulemiki the media coordinator for Christ the King Parish at Voruvoru reporting, the purpose for the report is for transparency and accountability regarding the SBD 100,000 for Tutu’s aid post project which was hand-delivered to the MPA in 2014 by the MP of Northwest Choiseul.

“Since 2014, only a small aid post building has been completed in which Tutu community suspect that the money has not been fully utilised. This is why the project completion report is needed for transparency,” said Mr Ulemiki.

“If there is no completion report being transparent to Tutu and the Northwest Choiseul Constituency Office then the matter will be brought to the Ombudsman Office.”

Hon Gideon Panisaga the MPA for Ward 12 at Northwest Choiseul recently in response however said that the project over Tutu’s aid post has already been completed and that the matter queried is confused for Ward 11’s aid post.

BY SAMIE WAIKORI

Auki

MALAITA Provincial Police Commander has acknowledged people in the province for good behaviour shown during the Easter session.

PPC Timothy Apaesi says the good behaviour shown portrays that people truly observed and were driven with the spirit of the Easter.

He said yesterday that all through the Easter weekend his office generally recorded no major incident both in Auki and across the province.

Apaesi said there were one or two cases but police worked really well to keep them at bay.

He said cooperation shown between people and public was really great resulting in a peaceful Easter celebration in Malaita.

Apaesi said people should uphold the same kind of behaviour as being law abiding citizens for the good of the province and the country.

He also asked the general public for cooperation with police to ensure Malaita province is a safer place for everyone.

Apaesi once again thanked chiefs, community elders, stakeholders, church leaders and followers and both men and women for their good behaviour during the Easter weekend.

BY ALFRED PAGEPITU

GIZO

THE Western province government has called on the national government to seriously consider lowering its ‘very high taxation rate’.

Minister of Tourism and Culture Division Christian Mesepitu in his Sine Die deliberations last week said the country’s high tax rates is making investing in the country ‘very difficult to impossible’.

“I challenge the national government to pin down the very high taxation rate and allow some sort of incentives to selected category of investors to lure attraction to invest in our shore.

“If the national government finds it difficult to indentify taxation, why not Western Province takes the initiative.

“We can start of is by indentifying airfares for our international inbound tourists and travelers.”

Mr Mesepitu said subsidiary airfares should be provided lowering it to an affordable rate to maximise capacity on airplane seats.

“By the rate, I believe we can address high airfare rate currently in place which is ridiculous.

“Our national airline is struggling with empty seats on most of its international flight especially to Australia.

“This is because it is too expensive then they rather go to Vanuatu, Fiji, PNG or even Bali for vacation because it is three times cheaper compared to us.”

He said Solomon Islands is being regarded as an expensive holiday destination that only high-end customers can afford to come to Solomon Islands.

“But they are occasional or seasonal travelers. Therefore, we need to target demographic age group from 10-40 years but middle and working class who travels just about any time.”