Liaison officers and drivers standby for MACFEST

BY LYNTON AARON FILIA

CHAIRPERSON for the Melanesia Arts Festival says MACFest committee has already identified liaison officers and drivers who are mostly public servants to take up these positions for the festival where Solomon Islands will host approximately 2000 contingents.

Honiara is expecting approximately 2000 visitors who will be attending the Melanesian Arts and Festival to commence on July 1—14 under the theme: “Past Recollection for Future Connections”. The event will also coincide with the country’s 40th Anniversary.

As the country is counting down for such an event, MACFest’s chairperson and Permanent Secretary for the Ministry Culture and Tourism Mr Andrew Nihopara said a group of liaison officers and driver have already been identified.

He said, the MACFest committee that also comprises of the Ministry of Foreign Affair’s representative have identified only public servants as event’s liaison officers.

PS Nihopara said these people were often used as liaison officers in past events with few new ones drawn from the SINU’s School of Tourism and Hospitality.

For drivers, Nihopara said, they have selected officials drivers from the existing public service pool, with exception to a few that are drawn from outside the government circle due to shortage of official government drivers.

Mr Nihopara explained the drivers are experienced government officers that are picked out from the pool of drivers that the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development Mechanical Division have.

With this, the MACFest committee and Ministry of Foreign Affairs have set the month of June to begin trainings on protocol for liaison officers and drivers before the actual event on July 1—14.

Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia will be attending the event.

For Solomon Islands alone there will be 300 delegates.

Invited delegates will be from West Papua who has been granted observer status, Timor Leste, and Torres Strait Island of Australia.

Discover more from Theislandsun

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

Continue reading