THE Holy Cross parish youths had a successful Easter camp at Holy Cross Cathedral during the Holy week session.

They were involved in an Easter liturgy and enacted the Passion of Christ on Good Friday with other programmes in the Easter Triduum.

During their camp the youth executives organised some Easter spiritual and physical activities like praying, sharing of Easter reflection and meditation for the youth members to participate with the Easter camp theme: My world His creation; and the activities started after the Easter Sunday holy mass.

The team colours were blue knights, white dove, super red and Greenleaf.

Volleyball and futsal plus other games were played to enjoy the Easter programme with the rising of the Lord Jesus on Easter Sunday.

The activities continued to the night with the Easter queen show and other social entertainment programmes.

The spiritual and social activities was to help the young people in their talents and skills in sports and to mobilise them to continue in Church activities and to fully understand the four sessions in the Catholic Church.

Mr Peter Hasi the chairman of Holy Cross parish youth thanked the youths for availing themselves for the Easter camp and participate in Easter Triduum programmes.

He also thanked the parents, parishioners, business companies and individuals for supporting their camp.

The camp was successfully ended with a picnic at Lela beach in west Honiara on Easter Monday with games and refreshment; and the youths really enjoyed it, and look forward for their yearly upcoming programmes.

By JB Epalle Kulisuia

Catholic Media

BY LYNTON AARON FILIA

THE Rapid Employment Project (REP) touches the heart of communities in Honiara through infrastructure projects which benefit many.

As of today REP has already completed 49 community access infrastructure subprojects consisting of 41 Jacob’s ladders and eight stream crossings/footbridges around Honiara.

Few communities in Guadalcanal are part of the infrastructure development.

REP Project Manager, Mr Salvador Jiao said, “The project’s Rapid Employment Scheme (RES) now generated nearly 800,000 paid labour days (over half are women) and provided short-term employment to 13,000 people (including 6,900 women) in Honiara since the project began in 2010.”

The Pre-Employment Training (PET) has trained about 12,000 participants, and provided one on one coaching services to about 1,700 persons, he adds.

Jiao said REP which is supported by the World Bank and shall close by the end of 2018, but preparations to commence with its successor project called Community Access and Urban Services Enhancement (CAUSE) Project are now well underway.

Building on the original parent project (REP), CAUSE will cover Honiara and additional urban and peri-urban locations in Guadalcanal, Malaita, and Western provinces, Jiao said.

He adds, the project has been designed building on REP’s proven track record and the experience of the implementing agencies, HCC and MID, in partnership with GPA, MPA and WPA.

He reveals the World Bank-IDA has initially committed US$15 million in grant funds to finance CAUSE.

BY BARNABAS MANEBONA

CALL continues from the community at Northwest Choiseul for a completion report from the MPA of Varisi Lavata, Ward 12, over Tutu’s aid post project.

According to Mr Nerio Ulemiki the media coordinator for Christ the King Parish at Voruvoru reporting, the purpose for the report is for transparency and accountability regarding the SBD 100,000 for Tutu’s aid post project which was hand-delivered to the MPA in 2014 by the MP of Northwest Choiseul.

“Since 2014, only a small aid post building has been completed in which Tutu community suspect that the money has not been fully utilised. This is why the project completion report is needed for transparency,” said Mr Ulemiki.

“If there is no completion report being transparent to Tutu and the Northwest Choiseul Constituency Office then the matter will be brought to the Ombudsman Office.”

Hon Gideon Panisaga the MPA for Ward 12 at Northwest Choiseul recently in response however said that the project over Tutu’s aid post has already been completed and that the matter queried is confused for Ward 11’s aid post.

BY SAMIE WAIKORI

Auki

MALAITA Provincial Police Commander has acknowledged people in the province for good behaviour shown during the Easter session.

PPC Timothy Apaesi says the good behaviour shown portrays that people truly observed and were driven with the spirit of the Easter.

He said yesterday that all through the Easter weekend his office generally recorded no major incident both in Auki and across the province.

Apaesi said there were one or two cases but police worked really well to keep them at bay.

He said cooperation shown between people and public was really great resulting in a peaceful Easter celebration in Malaita.

Apaesi said people should uphold the same kind of behaviour as being law abiding citizens for the good of the province and the country.

He also asked the general public for cooperation with police to ensure Malaita province is a safer place for everyone.

Apaesi once again thanked chiefs, community elders, stakeholders, church leaders and followers and both men and women for their good behaviour during the Easter weekend.

BY ALFRED PAGEPITU

GIZO

THE Western province government has called on the national government to seriously consider lowering its ‘very high taxation rate’.

Minister of Tourism and Culture Division Christian Mesepitu in his Sine Die deliberations last week said the country’s high tax rates is making investing in the country ‘very difficult to impossible’.

“I challenge the national government to pin down the very high taxation rate and allow some sort of incentives to selected category of investors to lure attraction to invest in our shore.

“If the national government finds it difficult to indentify taxation, why not Western Province takes the initiative.

“We can start of is by indentifying airfares for our international inbound tourists and travelers.”

Mr Mesepitu said subsidiary airfares should be provided lowering it to an affordable rate to maximise capacity on airplane seats.

“By the rate, I believe we can address high airfare rate currently in place which is ridiculous.

“Our national airline is struggling with empty seats on most of its international flight especially to Australia.

“This is because it is too expensive then they rather go to Vanuatu, Fiji, PNG or even Bali for vacation because it is three times cheaper compared to us.”

He said Solomon Islands is being regarded as an expensive holiday destination that only high-end customers can afford to come to Solomon Islands.

“But they are occasional or seasonal travelers. Therefore, we need to target demographic age group from 10-40 years but middle and working class who travels just about any time.”

By Mike Puia

MEMBER of Parliament for Aoke/Langalanga, Mathew Wale, has called for a cease to all bauxite mining operations on Rennell Island, Renbel Province.

Mr Wale made this call when staff of the Ministry of Mines, Energy and Rural Electrification (MMERE) appeared before the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) recent inquiry.

The outspoken Wale urged staff of the Ministry to bring an amendment to Parliament to address issues relating to bauxite operations on Rennell or cease all bauxite mining operations on the island.

He said it appears the Ministry has been careless when handling this matter.

Wale said the Ministry should not wait on its new law to deal with issues relating to mining on Rennell but treat this issue with urgency by bringing an amendment to Parliament.

“The Ministry must come to Parliament with an amendment to deal specifically with bauxite issues as a matter of urgency,” Wale said.

He described the situation the country is facing with regards to bauxite mining as a “leakage”.

Wale said even if the country is not having issues with cash flow, it is immoral to get minerals out of the country without any legislative oversight or system to test and know what is going out and what returns the country is getting.

He was making reference to statement from staff of the Ministry who revealed that the Ministry has no formula to calculate what the country will get from the bauxites exported.

“I think the Ministry has two options here. You come to Parliament with an amendment urgently or cease all operations on Rennell,” Wale said.

He said the Ministry cannot allow bauxite mining operations to continue on Rennell when it has no law to cater for bauxite mining operations.

“This is a very concerning issue therefore the Ministry must not take it lightly,” Wale said.

Since the commencement of mining on the island in 2014, a total of 47 exports have been made.

On average, about 70,000 of metric tonnes are shipped out in one shipment.

BY BARNABAS MANEBONA

NOT all of Lauru Shipping Company’s ships are out of service as MV Nuatabu is continuing her operation for Choiseul Province.

Solomon Islands Maritime Safety Administration (SIMSA) Acting Director Jonah Mitau confirmed this after concern from Choiseul Province citizens had it that all of Lauru Shipping’s ships are out of service in which the situation will affect transport services in the province.

The Director clarified from query that both MV Lauru 1 and MV San Marcos are indeed experiencing mechanical problems in which their administration awaits both master’s or responsible officer’s reports on the incident.

“MV Nuatabu owned by Hon Manasseh Sogavare’s Constituency and operated by Lauru Shipping Company however is continuing her operation,” said Mr Mitau.

Currently, people of Choiseul Province are calling on their Provincial Government to advice Lauru Shipping Company to charter or make arrangements with other shipping services purposely to operate sea transport services to the province.

“Business houses in the province are badly affected by the major setback on quick and efficient services provided by Lauru Shipping Company in which we sympathise with them for that matter,” said locals.