By EDDIE OSIFELO

MINISTRY of Forestry and Research is facing set back to update the State of the Forestry Report due to funding delay and coronavirus pandemic.

Minister Commins Mewa explained when answering the question asked by Member of Parliament for West Kwara’ae, Sam Iduri in Parliament yesterday.

Mewa said the ministry is still progressing the work to update the state of our Forest.

He said the report on the forest cover and land use will be presented to Cabinet and eventually to Parliament.

Independent Leader, John Dean Kuku asked a supplementary question on what percentage of the report was completed.

Mewa in response said it was 80 percent completed.

Furthermore, the ministry is ready to roll out an inventory exercise which cost around $3 million across the country to do drone on the satellite imagery assessment and to update a state of forest data.

Mewa said a delay was because a proposal that they submitted to FAO is yet to be accepted for funding.

However, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in collaboration with Food Agriculture Organization (FAO) has shown interest to assist on the ground truthing.

Mewa said currently, training and capacity building is ongoing using various technologies like drones and computers software to enhance the satellite imagery assessment report.

He said the software that is currently being used to train their officers include using iPad built with inventory software to assist the forest and enter data in the forest that will automatically update the main database in headquarters, Honiara.

“Our plan is to begin rolling out trial inventories in some parts of the country in 2020 is affected by this COVID 19 issue and the budget given to the Ministry was not enough to support the programme.

“This inventory is very likely going to be delayed as funds will be very likely be unavailable in 2021, but I trust my Ministry will continue the negotiation with our Development Partners to support us in that endeavour to know the truth of the Status of our Forest as currently, logging which has higher contributions to our economy, employment, infrastructure development, additional services and SIG revenue is exploiting our natural forests at an unsustainable rate,” he said.

Mewa said they are dealing with the unsustainable harvesting through the Sustainable Logging Policy as of this year as round logs export is proposed to be reduced compared to 2019.

“And I want to assure you all that, our forest is a renewable resource and our National Forest Policy is addressing the utilisation, sustainability, protection, governance and restoration of the forest,” he added.

The Ministry of Forestry and Research had started the work on updating the State of the Forest since 2018 using the Satellite imagery and other updated technology through the assistance of JICA and FAO. 

On that exercise, the Ministry used 2km x 2km and 4km x 4km scale to determine the forest cover and land use across our country.

A report developed from that assessment had been submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as our Forest Reference Level (FRL) which has been requested  as a REDD+ requirement to report on our Carbon emissions and Carbon sequestrations, capturing the forest degradation and deforestation and our determination to know carbon emissions and sequestrations difference and the balance for the management of the Carbon emissions through forest management and restoration.

This report was accepted and published last year and we will submit or present it before the Cabinet and later a Parliament paper.

By EDDIE OSIFELO

GOVERNMENT will discuss a re-direction and come up with a resolution to spend money until the expiry of four months since the 2019 budget is not ready.

It will also deliberate on whether to extend the State of Public Emergency for the next four months when it ends on November 25.

Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare moved a special adjournment motion in Parliament yesterday to move the sitting to Thursday, November 19, 2020 in order to allow the government to deliberate on both issues.

Opposition Leader, Mathew Wale supported the motion moved by the Prime Minister.

However, Wale decided to raise some issues in order for the Government to provide answers and details when Parliament resumes in the next sitting.

He asked the government to provide list of the Economic Stimulus Package and explain why some Members of Parliament received more than $600,000 than other MPs.

Further to that, Wale asked for Government to explain the cash flow problem in the Treasury and performance of the economy in this trying time.

“The house should be informed on the number of jobs lost due to covid 19, noting the jobs lost that are not covid-19 related, new jobs created, or projected to be created, by the various government interventions through ESP and projects, especially the Pacific Games construction projects,” he said.

He said government will see how the information will be presented in Parliament when discussing the resolution here.

However, Sogavare said jobs creation is very important in any economy and country which government will try to address.

Commissioner Mangau says officers will continue duties while authorities work hard to pay outstanding allowances next week

BY JENNIFER KUAPA

POLICE Commissioner has guaranteed that his officers will not stage a sit-in protest against government’s failure to pay outstanding allowances.

He made the assurance following reports that police officers working frontline duties were threatening to stage a sit-in protest because government has not paid them several allowances including ones connected to covid-19 duties.

Commissioner Mostyn Mangau adds that responsible authorities are working hard to ensure these allowances are paid next week.

This he says comes from an understanding reached between the Office of the Prime Minister, Finance Ministry and the Ministry of Police, National Security and Correctional Services after discussions was held between them to address the problem.

Mangau explains that the Finance ministry has been facing difficulties in processing allowances for the huge number of police officers involved in covid-19 operations across the country, which include assisting other government agencies.

Meanwhile, he thanks his officers who are affected by the unpaid allowance problem for their patience and allowing authorities to deal with it.

“I thank the police officers who committed themselves to work on frontline duties here in Honiara as well as in the western border for the good work they are doing in protecting our border at the Western part of our country and for our officers here in Honiara for continue dedicating themselves in supporting our government in fighting covid-19.

 “It is important to note that the Government’s Covid-19 Oversight Committee, the specially tasked committee in spending a lot of time in ensuring our officers are adequately remunerated,” Mangau said.

He said police officers are mandated to provide law and order in the country and also is one of the essential services, therefore police officers will always make sure that the security of this country is maintained and also with these coivd-19 operations police are supporting other government agencies to fight covid in the country.

“I want to reassure the frontline officers that Government has assured us that the issue of unpaid allowance has been given priority and the outstanding allowances will be paid in the coming week.”

Mangau also explained that police officers are paid in two different allowances for those support officers they are paid $500 fortnightly, whilst officers who are deployed to the Border are paid $150 per day and those that looking after the quarantine sites are paid according to the camp managements of $400 per day.