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Budget passed

Written by
Eddie Osifelo
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National Parliament of Solomon Islands

By EDDIE OSIFELO

PARLIAMENT has passed the $4 billion budget without amendments after four days of scrutiny in the Committee of Supply.

Both sides of the house have met until after 7pm on Monday to complete the scrutiny of the $2.7 billion recurrent budget for the 24 ministries and four constitutional offices.

They completed the scrutiny of the budget support expenditures for eight ministries and development expenditures for all 24 ministries continues yesterday.

About $938 million is allocated under the Development Budget for projects.

While $258.5 million is allocated under Budget Support Expenditures.

The budget supports are money provided by donors to the eight ministries to spend this year.

Minister of Finance and Treasury, Harry Kuma has also made correction to the Bill before it is sent to Governor General for ascending.

Parliament resumes at 9.30am today.

‘Parliament road’ a failed project: Maelanga

Written by
Eddie Osifelo
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Solomon Islands National Parliament

By EDDIE OSIFELO

MINISTER of Infrastructure Development Manasseh Maelanga has confirmed the abandoned road development from the Girl Guide area up to the western precinct of Parliament was a ‘failed’ project.

Maelanga confirmed this in Parliament during the discussion on the development projects around Parliament in the Committee of Supply yesterday.

He said a company owned by the current Premier of Malaita Province; Daniel Suidani cleared the road up to Parliament.

MID has given the project to Suidani’s company to construct the road to help Members arrive at Parliament in time due to the ongoing traffic jam on the main road.

Members of Parliament are still to use the road until today as MID has halted the road development.

However, former Prime Minister and MP for Small Malaita, Rick Hou said it is good that the road is closed because when it was in operation, he had struggled to drive up the road.

Hou, also Chairman of House Committee, said people looking after the road told him to go down the road and reverse up.

“I actually reversed up the hill and just reached the middle and decided to drive down,” he added.

Hou said at one time he was advised to reverse his vehicle up the hill but it abruptly stopped on the middle of the hill.

Speaker of Parliament, Patterson Oti said discussion is ongoing.

He said an approach is made to one donor to respond to the requirement of the road to serve purposes of Parliament avoiding congestion when Members come to work.

Suidani slams moves to extend life of parl

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Admin
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Premier of Malaita province Daniel Suidani

MALAITA Premier Daniel Suidani has cautioned the national government on its intention to extend the life of the current parliament from four to five years.

As has been shared on the local social media the Prime Minister has presented a Cabinet paper not long ago seeking for the extension of the life of the current parliament from 4 to 5 years and the Cabinet have agreed on the proposal.

But Suidani said that he sees no reasonable reasons why the life of the current parliament has to be extended.

He said that the reasons stated in the Cabinet paper as shared on social media have no fundamental groundings to necessitate an amendment to an important aspect of our Constitution and the governance of the country.

“The reasons and obligations stated by the PM can still be dealt with within the 4 years period of the life of this parliament,” Suidani said.

“Things like the implementation of the TRC report and the Federal Government System are matters that have been around for some time,” he added.

“Should the government be serious about these matters it should have addressed them a long time ago.

“In any case, there is the principle of government continuity and that such fundamental matters would take more than one political government to implement.”

Suidani said that he is very doubtful that this issue is even part of the much-promoted DCGA policy redirection. 

“The way this whole thing is put together is no different from how DCGA has handled the diplomatic switch policy.

“It started from nowhere but ended up occupying much of the government’s time.

“Let’s not keep on repeating unpopular decisions because our people are fed up with this kind of decision-making.”

Suidani encourages the government to implement its policy redirection rather than engaging in something that benefits no one.

“There are so many dislocations in the development of this country and the government should concentrate on addressing these development issues rather than making an amendment that will benefit no one but the political leaders.”

New COVID case detected on foreign cargo vessel

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Press Release
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PRIME Minister Manasseh Sogavare has announced a new COVID-19 case in the country.

The Prime Minister in his special nationwide address yesterday said the case was detected amongst a crewmember of the Cargo Vessel MV Chefoo.

Prime Minister Sogavare said the case was detected following a comprehensive risk assessment undertaken by the ‘Vessels’ Exemption Committee’ over the weekend.

“This individual was one of five new crew members that joined the vessel at Lae Port in PNG on 15th April 2021.

“It is notable that all five new crew members that joined the vessel at Lae, tested negative for COVID-19 at Lae on 12th April 2021, three days before boarding the vessel,” he said.

Prime Minister Sogavare said the vessel left Lae for Honiara at 8pm on 15th April and arrived in Honiara at 7pm on 17th April – 1 hour short of two days sailing time.

Prime Minister Sogavare said the Oversight Committee on the advice of the Vessel Exemption Committee has set five days as the ‘minimum quarantine at sea period’ for any vessel that travels from any PNG port to any Solomon Islands port.

He said this is to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission through vessels.

The Prime Minister said the Exemption Committee can grant exemptions to the vessels if the assessment shows low or negligible levels of risk for COVID-19 transmission.

“If the COVID-19 risk assessment is high, the vessel does not get any exemption and must serve the full 5 days quarantine at sea before it can be cleared to discharge its cargo,” he said.

Prime Minister Sogavare said because of the high level of community transmission of COVID-19 in PNG, including in Lae, the Exemption Committee advised the Agent of the Vessel that all the five new crewmembers that joined the vessel in Lae, had to be re-tested to ensure they are still negative before the vessel can be cleared.

“Let me express my sincere gratitude to the Agent and the Principal of MV Chefoo for agreeing to have the five crew members tested, and for facilitating the boarding of the swabbing team to the vessel on Sunday 18th April to do the swabbing,” he said.

Prime Minister Sogavare said it was fortuitous that the Exemption Committee insisted on doing the repeat swabs on the five-crew members.

“This could have turned into a more serious situation for the vessel, the ship owner and operator and the shipping agent if there was to be a COVID-19 outbreak amongst the crew on the vessel,” he said.

The Prime Minister said given that many people affected by COVID-19 in PNG are asymptomatic, there would have been no way of knowing until someone actually gets sick due to the virus.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sogavare has explained that while this new case was diagnosed in our Molecular laboratory, it will not be registered as a Solomon Islands case.

He said this case will come under ‘Conveyance’ and registered under the name of the Vessel.

–PMO

Hiking rate of malaria in Malaita province

Written by
Samie Waikori
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0

BY SAMIE WAIKORI

AUKI 

MALAITA Provincial Vector Borne Disease Control Office in Auki has reported an annual increase of malaria in the province over the past years.

Programme Manager of Vector Borne Control programme for Malaita province, Mr John Susubi said in 2020, an increase of eight percent parasite incidental rate of malaria was recorded for the province compared to 2019.

He said the summary of records collected in the past years showed malaria keeps increasing year after year on a head-on rate.

Susubi said there were causes identified for the increase, but the primary cause was due to weaknesses in malaria control activities in the province.

He said there was also finding that an upsurge of malaria cases is always recorded from the month of November to April then May to October every year.

Susubi said whether this can be related to weather pattern of the country is interesting to know and is subjected to scientific study.

However, he said in order to reduce the rate of malaria in the province, it’s everybody’s business to work together in malaria control activities in the province.

Susubi said under vector borne control, three major components involved in the fight against malaria are, human being, environment and chemical.

He explained that under the component “human being” it comes with medication or treatment for people when tested positive and sick of malaria.

And this is the common malaria control people often resolve to, but this should be the last control people should seek in the campaign against malaria.

Susubi furthered that the second component is “environment”; this involves proper clean-ups in and around homes to avoid malaria and its reproduction in the environment.

He said the third component is chemical; that involves anti-malaria chemicals like Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) and others that applied in homes some years ago.

Saying that under the component is bed-net commonly known as mosquito net that is distributed to communities and can be accessible in malaria centres in the country.    

Susubi said another factor that keeps malaria active is because it has treatment in place, so people tend to become complacent since they think that treatment is available so everything will be ok.

He said fight against malaria should be a joint effort by everyone that requires personnel commitments to reduce the rate of malaria especially in Malaita province.

Bangladeshi man on rape charge out on $5000 bail

Written by
Jennifer Kusapa
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0

BY JENNIFER KUSAPA

A Bangladeshi man facing rape charge has been released on bail.

Principal Magistrate Felix Hollison released the Bangladesh national on bail yesterday following application by defence lawyer Hubert Fugui on Monday.

Mr Hollison ordered that the man be released on a cash bail of $5000 with other strict bail conditions.

Meanwhile three additional charges have also been filed yesterday by prosecution on the accused.

The additional charges are one count of indecent act, one count of criminal trespass and one count of intimidation.

Therefore, the Bangladesh national is now facing four charges, as the first charge is the charge of rape committed on a child under the age of 15.

The Bangladeshi man is accused of raping a girl 11-year-old at the Lungga area.

According to Police the case was reported to the Henderson police station last week by the mother of the victim.

Police said the victim’s mother called in at Henderson Police Station and reported that her daughter was raped by a Bangladesh national in his bedroom weeks ago.

The mother said she only knew of the incident when she heard stories from other girls about what happened to her, it was at that time the mother asked her daughter and confirmed that the accused has been doing sexual action on her about a week ago but she was afraid to tell anyone about it.

Premier condemns Mamara incident.

Written by
Jennifer Kusapa
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BY JENNIFER KUSAPA

GUADALCANAL Premier Francis Sade has condemned the recent damage incident at the Metropolis Development site at Mamara.

He said the armed group of men should not take the law into their own hands by entering the site and do what they wanted to do.

He said there are avenues to sort their grievances as resorting to violence is not a way forward, and there were allegations that some police officers were involved, which is not a good thing to do.

“Police officers are people who should mediate and inform the people about the rule of law, they must always abide by their code of conducts under their act.

“And for them to involve inside such practice does not speak well of the organisation,” Premier Sade said.

Sade said from some rumours the incident escalated as a result of harassment on some local young ladies who are working for the company by foreigners.

He said if such rumours are true the national Government and the company must be more responsible to avoid such from occurring in the future.

“There should be some orientation done before foreigners come inside our country, because we have our customs and culture in place and any foreigner coming in must always respect that.

“I totally condemned such acts by foreigners if the rumours are true, but I will call the director of the company to discuss those issues with him,” Sade said.

Auki Taxi Service repairs road in Auki

Written by
Samie Waikori
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0
Status of deteriorating roads in Auki town.

BY SAMIE WAIKORI

AUKI

MANAGEMENT of Auki Taxi Service on Monday this week took efforts to temporarily repair parts of the deteriorating roads within Auki town.

The brief repair of the roads was made following the impacts the road on road transport services especially in Auki.

According to report from the management of Auki Taxi Service, the condition of the road was a barrier to the taxi service they provide that affects their business.

It reported that upon the road condition faced, the newly established taxi based decided to temporary rehabilitate the road to ease the situation.

It said on Monday, members of the taxi service helped to refill potholes with gravels from Sikitae to Auki clinic a distance of 100 metres along the road.

The report said there are other segments of roads within Auki town with similar bad conditions and they are looking at temporary rehabilitation to the roads soon.

It said the effort is to relief the situation for time being while waiting for national government to fix the road.

This paper understands that Auki township road is part of SIRAP programme for Malaita province that also includes other road infrastructure like bridges and road rehabilitations outside of Auki.

National government through responsible aid donors are working on the programme and soon it will implement in the province.

PM agrees to address Gender Based Violence

Written by
Eddie Osifelo
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0

By EDDIE OSIFELO

PRIME Minister Manasseh Sogavare has agreed for the government to seriously address Gender Based Violence in the country.

This came after Opposition Leader Mathew Wale urged the Prime Minister to increase the funding to address GBV after it does not receive enough allocation under the Ministry of Women, Youths Children and Family Affair’s budget.

Responding to Wale in the Committee of Supply in Parliament on Monday, Sogavare said to address gender based violence needs cross section of the society to deal with it and not only the government.

This include the donors and churches to help the government curtail this issue which is described as a ‘cancer in the society’.

Sogavare said the government will need to discuss it with the right ministry to look at ways to address it, such as building more safe nets.

He said it is a serious issue that needs to be addressed now.

Wale earlier said the government is not serious about the scourge of domestic and gender-based violence in our society beyond the rhetoric.

“If it did, the size of allocations would show it,” Wale said.

“We are not unlike any other country in the world in this matter unfortunately.

“Gender based violence has increased sharply in recent times, at least by 15 percent where records are kept, and we don’t even have a proper recording system for this problem,” Wale said.

Wale said the need for refuge or safe houses in each province is both urgent and desperate.

He said the Government cannot continue its current business as usual attitude to this problem in our midst.

“It must collaborate with the churches and NGOs and invest in a rollout of safe houses across the nation, whilst simultaneously adopting a proactive preventative approach.”

He added that given the urgency and desperation of this situation, it is important that government considers renting properties for safe houses, as it plans for long term solutions.

“There is nothing in this budget to address this cancer. Is it because this problem predominantly affects women, young girls and children?” Wale questioned.

According to MWYCA, based on data collected from the Safe nets, Christian Care Centre at Tenaru recorded 10-15 percent in 2020.

While Family Support Centre recorded 10-11 percent in the first quarter of this year.

Both centres have received new cases like victims and clients trafficking and People Living With Disability and children besides the ongoing GBV on women.

3,000 babies die every year

Written by
Eddie Osifelo
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0
National Referral Hospital

By EDDIE OSIFELO

ABOUT 3,000 babies are dying every year from an estimated 20,000 babies born throughout the country.

Minister of Home Affairs, Christopher Laore confirmed this when asked by Leader of Opposition, Mathew Wale during the Committee of Supply in Parliament yesterday.

However, Laore said until recently, less than one per cent of those babies would have been officially registered and provided a birth certificate, placing their rights and protection at risk.

He said concerted and collaborative efforts by the Government and its development partners since 2010 have brought this figure closer to 34 per cent.

But Laore said still only 12 per cent of deaths are being registered, missing this indispensable opportunity to understand who is dying, where and why.

Furthermore, Laore adds that as of 31st December 2020, total registered babies are numbered at 249,190, a coverage of 34.53 percent of the 721,455 population on the current census.

He said out of the 34.53 percent, 87 percent (216,795) of it are under year olds.

“Ministry of Home Affairs and Development partners have been working closing in rolling out the new birth and death notification forms to register all new born babies across Solomon Islands and also capturing real time death data.

“A nationwide drive to register the birth of every person in the Solomon Islands is a must,” he said.

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