MAYOR WELCOMES INVESTIGATION ON THE TRANSFER OF HCC LAND.
THE Honiara City Mayor has welcomed investigations into the sell of the Honiara City Council owned land used by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock at Ranadi, east of Honiara.
The issue has been making headlines this week after news of the sale drew condemnation and calls for investigation over the dealings of the council which continues to find itself on the wrong end of public scrutiny.
City Mayor Wilson Mamae in a statement confirmed that investigation is being carried out into the sale of Council Land at Ranadi.
He welcomed any investigation on the matter of transfer of the land used by the Bio-security Division of the Ministry of Agriculture.
“Following what has been published in the media, I would like to inform the public that investigation now has been carried out through responsible body,” he said.
“In the meantime, I would like to urge all parties, whether it be public or private stakeholders who currently occupy HCC land to come forward and show your continuance interest of using HCC land,” the Mayor added.
HCC will be conducting valuation of all the land it owns and is expected to be concluded by the end of this quarter.
Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, Ethel Tebengi Frances said she is very disappointed about the action taken by HCC to sell off the land without consulting her ministry.
That piece of land houses the Biosecurity incinerator at Ranadi, east of Honiara.
“The land is used for destruction of all garbage remove from international vessels and aircraft coming into Solomon Islands,” Director of Biosecurity of MAL, Francis Tsatsia said in a strongly-worded statement.
“It’s a requirement that garbage of this sort must be offloaded and incinerated as biosecurity risk is very high,” Tsatsia added.
-HCC MEDIA
