BY SAMIE WAIKORI
Auki
THE Malaita provincial government (MPG) recently held talks on underpinning its relationship with the state of Israel.
The talk was made during the visit by Mr Yaron Sultan Dadon – the Advisor to the Pacific under Israeli Ambassador’s Office in Canberra to mark Israel’s 70th Independence Anniversary in Auki.
In an interview, Premier Peter Channel Ramohia said the discussion held was to re-examine areas of relationship between MPG and Israel, under the bilateral agreement SIG has with Israel.
He explained that under the diplomatic agreement, Israel and Malaita have some areas of mutual understanding between them.
“And they are on working in partnership with the province on areas of development.
“Likewise, their area of assistance is through providing expertise to assist in area of development in the province.
“In other words their expertise will come through their businesses or companies to execute the work,” he said.
Ramohia continued that also part of the agreement comes back to the province and national government to assist in some areas.
“Thus, these were our key challenges and had been resulted that nothing being fruitful under the MOU.
“I understand that under the MOU an industrial park should have been at Katabina and Fishery project for Live in south Malaita, but nothing was done.”
Ramohia said the recent visit of Mr Dadon to Auki was a follow-up on a consultation MPG had with Israel’s ambassador on February 25 this year in Honiara.
He said during the consultation both discussed proposed areas of work on agriculture, education, learning the Israeli Alya Policy and other areas for development in the province.
He added that during the discussion MPG also presented a proposal to assist on provincial plan, to establish Malaita cultural village near a lake close to Lilisiana village on the outskirt of Auki.
The premier went on that in the consultation both reached revisiting the economic stimulus package under the expired MOU, in preparation for the new MOU (the current one is expired).
Ramohia however said in Mr Dadon’s recent visit, the MPG has reinforced commitment on the previous proposals with included additional proposals.
He said the additional proposals were capacity building which looked at empowering human resource in the province.
Ramohia said there were three areas of interest given under the additional proposal that looked at short term attachment training for provincial personnel, scholarship scheme and look-and-learn for MPG leaders.
“The short term attachment looked at training staff on important specific areas of work to support both public and private sectors within Malaita province.
“Another is scholarship opportunity which looks at distributing study opportunity for best students in all wards across the province to study in Israel.
“And next is for leaders under MPG to engage in look and learn from areas of successful development in Israel or other places in the world Israel fruitfully carried-out development projects,” he said.
