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Makira producers earning dollar from their cocoa

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George Hanua, WV Community Development Facilitator visiting a Solar Dryer at a project sites in Makira.

MARKET Linkage Phase 11 Project of World Vision Solomon Islands in Makira Area Program has recorded a total of 13.9 tons of Cocoa value at $145,846.78 produced by its Producer Groups for the first half of this year.

The figure was recorded from the shipments of cocoa by the producer groups from January up to June to Kokonut Pacific Solomon Islands.

Makira Area Program Manager James Wamae revealed this while updating WVSI Staff during the 2021 Staff Meeting last week at Ginger Retreat Beach.

Wamae said MLPII project in Makira has indeed seeing impacts of the project as producer Groups are very active in engaging with the project.

“From January to June this year MLPII has so far shipped a total of 13.9 tons of Cocoa produced by the Producer Groups to Kokonut Pacific Solomon Islands which at a value of 145,846.78 received by PSGs,” Wamae stated.

World Vision’s Community Development Facilitator (CDF) Dorcus Moliki and Mathew a member of producer group checking the cocoa beans inside a Solar Dryer at Tawapuna Village, West Bauro Makira Ulawa Province. 

“In Makira, weather is a big challenge especially because the project has introduced solar drier for the producer groups to dry their cocoa beans, but the figure now has shown a great achievement,” he added.

Wamae also highlighted that the Project has helped eight Producer Groups (PGs) to secure provincial licenses and registered at the Company Haus.

Market Linkage Phase II (MLPII) Project is under the livelihood sector of World Vision Solomon Islands and is aimed to address the root cause of vulnerability by ensuring households and communities are better equipped to provide for children’s health, education and growth and invest in community assets to reduce vulnerability.

The project utilises three main project models: Savings For Transformation (S4T); Resilient and Inclusive Social Enterprises (RISE) and Community Channels of Hope (CCOH).

The goal of the RISE model is to increase the profitability and sustainability of social enterprises so that they are independently planning and taking action to improve their social enterprise, generating more sales and profit and being resilient to shocks and inclusive of vulnerable community members groups.

The RISE approach has been designed specifically to tackle the market and social challenges that face many communities in Melanesia.

Bags of Cocoa beans at Kokana awaiting shipment to Honiara. 

The RISE model builds on more than a decade of community based economic development programming in Solomon Islands and is the appropriate next step to graduate savings and producer group members towards establishing small businesses.

The CCOH model is working towards addressing gender issues by working with church faith groups.

In Makira the MLPII project conducted training for them about saving especially the S4T model which encouraging producer groups and families to save money and be able to do share out or for them to access small loan from that saving.

They were also trained on gender topics to ensure inclusion on their activities especially women and people with disability (PWD).

Farmers were also trained on farm management knowledges and introduced solar drier for them.

The project even secured a reliable buyer for the producer groups especially Kokonut Pacific Solomon Islands (KPSI).

Interestingly, the part of their sales always going towards their saving groups.

KPSI also assisted the project on technical advices and trainings for producer groups especially on the required quality of cocoa produce for exports.

The partnership has been so far cherished as the producer groups are now equipped with knowledge on cocoa production.

The 13.9 tons of Cocoa currently sold to KPSI is a testimony of the partnership.

Funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), MLPII is the biggest project currently implemented by World Vision Solomon Islands especially in Makira, Weather Coast of Guadalcanal, Small Malaita and Temotu.

The project focus on cocoa, coconut and fishery.

The Project will soon be handing over the fishery centers constructed to people of Marau in Guadalcanal Province.

ESP now in monitoring and evaluation stages

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THE Government’s Economic Stimulus Package implementation has reached its Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) stages.

This is according to a statement the ESP Oversight Committee issued yesterday.

 “Honiara and Guadalcanal Province are the first two provinces for the M&E stages,” the statement said.

“Officials who have been recently recruited to undertake the task will go through an intensive training this week before they are mobilized to the field to collect data for the evaluation exercise,” it added.

“The committee strongly encourages recipients from the ESP initiative to work cooperatively with the data and survey team in order to provide sufficient and reliable information.

“The committee believes the reliability and adequacy of the information provided is necessary for future references and guide on similar initiatives.”

Meanwhile, the committee also approved that processing of approved receipts will cease on 16th July 2021. 

This is to allow work to concentrate on the monitoring and evaluation of the package.

The committee said it acknowledges that all other payouts for other sectors have been finalised and disbursed to recipients.

“The Government through the ESP Committee is fully committed to the accountable implementation of the ESP in the interest of wellbeing of the people, national stability and economic empowerment,” the statement said.

USP graduation set for October

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Brian Lezutuni
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BY JARED KOLI

THE University of the South Pacific (USP) has confirmed that the next Solomon Islands Campus Graduation has been scheduled for October 2021.

According to USP’s Student Administrative Services (SAS), the graduation will be for students in the following groups;

·       Solomon Islands student or students based at Solomon Islands Campus who are completing their programme in Semester 1 2021,

·       Solomon Islands student or students based at Solomon Islands Campus who are completing their programme in Trimester 1 or Trimester 2, 2021,

·       Solomon Islands student or students based at Solomon Islands Campus who will be completing their programme in the 2021 Winter Flexi-School term, and

·       Any Solomon Islands student or students based at Solomon Islands Campus who have completed their programme in an earlier semester / trimester and have not graduated.

SAS called on students in the above groups to apply for the graduation as applications are now open and closes on Friday, 30th July 2021.   

“Do not wait for your results to be released! You must apply before the closing date. Late applications will not be accepted,” it said.

Completing students are required to fill in and submit a hard copy of the Completion of Programme application form at the Student Administrative Services office at their campus.  

“There are number of checks that need to be carried out and a number of reports that need downloaded before the final grades come out which is why we require potential graduands to apply by Friday, 30th July 2021.”

The last day to assess pending applications for the Solomon October 2021 Graduation is Friday, 17th September 2021 therefore students should ensure that all their pending issues are sorted by this date.

Bore wells for east Mala communities

Written by
Eddie Osifelo
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Malaita Provincial member for ward 14, Preston Billy, second left, with members of Clean Water for Life ready to ship equipment for bore wells to East Malaita.

By EDDIE OSIFELO

ABOUT 4,000 people from Atori to Kwai Island in East Malaita will have access to bore well water sources.

This after a Non-Government Organisation, Clean Water 4 Life ministry is working in collaboration with Malaita Provincial Member for ward 16, Preston Billy to co-fund drilling equipment, pipes and cement bags to establish 17 bore wells in the constituency.

The cost of all the equipment to establish the project is around $119,000.

Billy said bore wells suite well for individual communities compared to water supply that attracts a lot of land disputes between the people.

He said people can access water directly from bore well without any issues because they have ownership over it.

He said unlike water supply sources, many people claim ownership over it and could result in land disputes.

Team leader of the project, Kellison Apuapuri Sirioda said these are standard bore wells.

He said they work according to World Health Organisation drilling standards to establish them.

Sirioda said the duration of completing the work is around three weeks.

Previously, he said his team have established 11 bore wells in ward 18 from Olomburi to Sinaragu in East Kwaio.

Sirioda said bore well has no other contaminations because it accesses ground water.

CW47 has brought smiles to thousands of people in the remote villages from Shortlands to Makira Ulawa to date through established 850 bore wells so far.

PM praises frontliners again

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Passengers arriving from Australia at the Honiara International airport go through thermal sensors as workers check for coronavirus symptoms on Thursday 29th January.

PRIME Minister Manasseh Sogavare says the country’s COVID-19 free status is a testament of the pre-arrival and post-arrival protocols, and the dedication of all our front liners.

The Prime Minister said Solomon Islands has been COVID-19 free now for almost 3 months.

“This is a testament to our pre-arrival and post-arrival protocols, and the dedication of all our front liners,” he said.

Prime Minister Sogavare said 18 of the 20 previously positive people have completed their 90-days follow-up periods and have been released.

He said the remaining two people will complete their 90-days this month and will be released if their final review returns negative.

“I thank all the former positive cases for their corporation with our health team,” he said.

The Prime Minister also urged all former positive cases to be vaccinated.

“Recent studies have shown that previously positive people develop much longer protection against COVID-19 if they also get vaccinated after their infection,” Prime Minister Sogavare said.

Positive students in Fiji are not sick: PM

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Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare. Photo supplied.

OUR 10 students in Fiji that have tested positive for COVID-19 are all “asymptomatic”.

Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare in his nationwide address said all 10 of them are doing well and none of them are sick from the illness.

The Prime Minister said as of Sunday, the first two students had been given the greenlight to be released by the Fiji Ministry of Health.

However, he said our team on the ground advised the students to remain in the accommodation until all of them are negative.

Prime Minister Sogavare said all 10 students are living together in one accommodation apartment.

“Based on the policy of the host government, the students have been isolated at their accommodation with the support from the Fijian authorities and our own High Commission and Student Attaché in Fiji,” he said.

Sogavare said the high commission and education attaché in Fiji visited our students daily.

“Following COVID-19 safe practices and social distancing, they deliver necessary support from food to face masks and gloves,” he said.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sogavare said based on the situation in Fiji, the Fiji Ministry of Health is anticipating the situation to get worse before it gets better.

On Sunday Fiji reached its highest daily total of 522 new cases. In the first 4 days of July alone, Fiji has registered 1,743 new cases of COVID-19.

Prime Minister Sogavare cautioned that given the level of community transmission in Fiji, it is likely for more infection among our students, although they have been incredibly careful to look after themselves.

“We have advised all our students to get vaccinated as soon as possible to comply with Fiji government’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout policy and follow COVID-19 safe practices when they go for vaccination,” he said.

The Prime Minister said to protect our people and our country; all people travelling from high-risk countries to Solomon Islands must be vaccinated first.

‘Gov’t committed to bring students home’

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USP main campus in Laucala, Fiji.

THE Government is committed to repatriating all graduating students and their families from Fiji at a time that is safe for the country.

Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare in his nationwide address early this week also announced that Fiji is now classified as a ‘high-risk country for covid-19’.

The Prime Minister said the Oversight Committee has agreed to a repatriation flight.

However, he said the date of the flight is still under consideration.

“My good people, we must fully assess the best time to repatriate our students,” Sogavare said.

“This assessment must ensure we do not accidently bring the Delta Variant to Solomon Islands through a repatriation flight,” he added.

The Prime Minister said the current outbreak in Fiji has so far infected more than 6,100 and claimed 28 since April this year.

It started from two people that brought the Delta Variant to Fiji from India.

“We must guard against such possibility in Solomon Islands.

“At the same time, we must ensure we provide the best support to our students in Fiji during this difficult time,” he said.

Prime Minister Sogavare said it is imperative for all graduating students and students planning to return home to complete their courses online in Solomon Islands, to be vaccinated before they return.

“Fellow citizens, to protect our people and our country, we also have a policy that all people travelling from high-risk countries to Solomon Islands must first be vaccinated before they travel,” he said.

The Prime Minister said we cannot take any chance of potentially bringing in the Delta Variant COVID-19 infection to Solomon Islands.

Prime Minister Sogavare said the Government will continue to work with the Solomon Islands High Commission in Suva, SPM Dr Jimmie Rodgers and his wife Dr Elizabeth, who have also been caught up in the COVID-19 outbreak in Fiji, to ensure our students are safe, and that they all are vaccinated as soon as possible.

5 injured after Kava farming clash on Malaita

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Five people were seriously injured after a fight over a portion of land used for Kava farming in Malobo village, West Kwara’ae on Tuesday.

Provincial Police Commander (PPC) Malaita Province, Chief Superintendent Stanley Riolo said the incident happened after a father and his son cleared a portion of area to plant Kava.

However, another father and his two sons went in and planted Kava inside that same area.

PPC Riolo therefore said an argument escalated and the trio attacked the father who first cleared the Kava Garden.

His son after seeing his father fell to the ground, fought back against the three and in the process serious wounds were inflicted on each other.

Chief Superintendent Riolo said police have responded and currently investigating the wounding incident.

The five were transported to Kilu’ufi hospital for medical attention. Two among those injured were referred to the National Referral Hospital after their condition became serious.

—RSIPF

COVID CASES, GOV’T SILENT

Written by
Brian Lezutuni
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USP main campus in Laucala, Fiji.

BY JARED KOLI

Ten Solomon Islands students in Fiji have reportedly tested positive for covid-19 as the country grapples with an escalating number of cases of the virus.

Two students tested positive from two separate tests conducted last week, and eight others were confirmed positive after another test was conducted on Saturday.

The 10 are studying at the University of the South Pacific (USP) and are currently quarantined at home in their rented home in Nasese, just close to USP’s Laucala campus, together with 16 other students from Fiji and Vanuatu who are also positive.

“The worse thing is we are crowded and we also share the same facilities like shower and toilet rooms,” one brave insider said.

He said some begin to experience symptoms of the virus and have tried out some home remedies to see if that could help.   

“At the moment we just stayed home and see what help we can receive from home in Solomon Islands and the Ministry of Health here in Fiji,” the student, who requested anonymity, told Island Sun from Suva yesterday. 

The student said they are surprised that the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (MEHRD) and Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS) said they are not aware of their situation, as the Education Attache in Suva has been informed of it.

“At first when the two students were tested positive, they should relocate the eight of us elsewhere so that we could prevent from being infected. They told us but did nothing, at the moment the 26 of us here all tested positive,” the student said.

MEHRD and MHMS when reached on this issue this week could not confirm the situation these students were faced with.

National Scholarship Division (NSD) Director Curtis Kalu said they did not receive any specific names on the students who were reported to have contracted the virus.

MHMS senior advisor Dr Yogesh Choudhri said they will issue a joint statement on the issue with the students.

“Lot of support is being given by the MEHRD and I am waiting for their component before we issue a joint statement,” he told this newspaper. 

Covid-19 positive cases in Fiji surge daily and yesterday reached 431 and two deaths in the 24-hour reporting period that ended at 8am yesterday morning.

Meanwhile, another Solomon Islands USP student residing in Suva said they are next-door neighbours of covid-19 positive cases.

“The real situation here is totally different, at the moment health facilities started to exhausted and all these positive cases are quarantined at home, hospitals is only for severe cases.

“What is needed here now is for our government to talk out on what is the emergency plan or prepared plans in place to deal with the situation we are currently facing here, most of the cases here are now community transmission,” the student said.

Island Sun understands that a dedicated multi-sectoral taskforce was formed to monitor the daily updates of the on-going transmissions of covid-19 and the measures taken in Fiji.

The multi-sectoral taskforce comprises of MEHRD, MHMS, Solomon Islands Tertiary Education and Skills Authority, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and External Trade. They have been meeting on a weekly basis to monitor the daily updates of the on-going transmissions of covid-19 and the measures taken in Fiji.

However, the student in Suva questions the weekly meetings held by the multi-sectoral taskforce.

“They send us an advisory telling us they are committed to ensuring that we all are safe and that our welfare is maintained. Is this some kind of joke?” he questions.

The student said now most of the cases are transmitted locally, exacerbated by the Delta variant which is the most dangerous covid-19 strain. 

Yesterday MEHRD Permanent Secretary Dr Franco Rodie in an email to students confirmed that a repatriation flight for students that will be travelling back home has been set for July 31.

Mr Rodie urged all students who will be travelling to be vaccinated before they travel back to Solomon Islands. 

“One of the key requirements is for students coming on 31 July to have their Covid-19 vaccine. So inform all students coming on the flight to be vaccinated before they travel. Any student who fails to vaccinate against Covid-19 will not be allowed to travel,” cited the email

Debt-for-Climate swap could help address COVID-19 debt

Written by
Brian Lezutuni
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Former Central Bank Governor, now Senior Advisor to the Pacific Islands Forum, Denton Rarawa.

BY BRIAN LEZUTUNI

WITH rising debts in the Pacific due to impacts of Covid-19, the Pacific Islands Forum secretariat (PIFS) is heading to the Forum Economic Ministers Meeting later this month with a string of proposals aimed at helping nations in their recovery process.

A Debt-for-Climate swap based around the proposed Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF) would help communities be better prepared for disasters while at the same time easing the need to add to the government debt burden.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Pacific nations have accumulated a total debt of $1.6 billion, according to former Governor of the Central Bank and Senior Economic advisor to the PIFS, Denton Rarawa.

Rarawa told a team of Pacific Journalists this week that most regional countries are classified as high debt risk countries.

“Even before the Covid-19 issue, most countries in terms of growth have been slow or lower so governments have been experiencing economic difficulties even before COVID-19,” Rarawa said.

“When COVID came it exacerbated the whole situation,” he added.

The Pacific Resilience Facility, an initiative of Pacific Forum leaders – will be the only Pacific-owned and controlled climate fund.

Once it is established it will offer small grants for projects such as community centres and schools that can also be used as evacuation centres, transport links, wharves and coastal defences.

But first Pacific leaders must find USD$1.5 billion in capital for the fund – not an easy task in difficult economic times.

Rarawa said PIFS believes the Pacific Resilience Facility could be used as a vehicle to implement a debt swap.

“The idea is to get (Pacific) countries to contribute to this Facility and use those contributions as a means of off-setting our debts … this is the proposal that we are taking to the ministers,” he said.

The proposal for a Debt-for-Climate swap based on the PRF would allow Pacific countries to pay debt repayments to the PRF instead of creditors creating a sustainable financing model.

Rarawa said the Forum is working on soliciting support from traditional and non-traditional partners towards capitalisation of the Pacific Resilience Facility.

“We are also proposing a Regional Debt Conference to be convened at the end of the year or maybe in the 1st quarter of 2022.

“This is to allow debtor countries and creditors to come together to resolve the debt issue in terms of debt relief and debt restructuring so on and so forth.”

Solomon Islands government debt is significant and growing.

In his budget speech Minister of Finance and Treasury, Harry Kuma noted Solomon Islands debt to GDP ratio had reached around 11.7 percent at the end of December 2020.

“This is a sustainable level. However, at this level of debt, the Solomon Islands has limited capacity to borrow fund for its needed development.”

In a statement, the Central Bank of Solomon Islands said the Government’s debt rose from $1,074 million at the end of 2019 to SBD$1,451 million in 2020.

This is an increase of 35 percent or $377 million, much of it related to covid-19 borrowing.

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