BY BARNABAS MANEBONA

INCREASE of non-communicable diseases currently reported at Northwest Choiseul is believed to be caused by the rapid change of eating habits and lifestyle.

Mr Nerio Ulemiki the media coordinator for Christ the King Parish at Voruvoru reporting said locals are now urging its citizens to make a strong u-turn with commitment to decrease consuming refined foods from shops.

“This includes heavy consumption of smoking and alcohol as well,” said Mr Ulemiki.

“Change from local foods and local cooking styles to refined foods and modern cooking styles spark it all in contributing to people becoming lazy and ignoring the old system of relying on healthy local foods because they turn to depend on foods from shops instead.

“A strong u-turn with commitment must be done to make the old system work back again.”

BY BARNABAS MANEBONA

FORMER Premier of Choiseul Province Mr Clement Kengava urges Lauru citizens to seriously make good choices when voting for their MPA leaders in their nearing provincial election.

He said confirmation by the Permanent Secretary (PS) for the Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening (MPGIS) at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) recently that Choiseul and Western Provinces Provincial elections are to be held in June this year should be a relief for voters, after their rights to choose new Assemblies in September last year was suppressed through deferments.

“I call on Choiseul voters not to take the provincial election lightly or as a game, but be serious about it because Choiseul needs a new roadmap in its relationship with the National Government,” said Kengava.

The former MP of Northwest Choiseul and also former Premier is encouraging people who believe in developing Choiseul Province to go ahead to another level in contesting for the provincial’s 16 seats Assembly.

BY MAVIS NISHIMURA PODOKOLO

A call to install all early warning systems in one place was made during the launching of the wrapped-up event of the Solomon Islands Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management and Meteorology Capacity Development Project (SIMCAP) last week.

This call was made by a concerned outspoken staff working at the division of Meteorology under the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management and Meteorological (MECDM).

He said the early warning systems are meteorology, seismology and hydrology equipment, to name a few, which function to produce relevant and timely information in a systematic way prior to a disaster in order to make informed decisions and to take actions.

“Having few of the leading systems located in different ministry has been a problem in regards to our work.

“Hence we want all lead sources (early warning systems) to be located in one place to help us predict and mitigate the harm of natural and human- initiated disasters and other undesirable natural disasters.

“With this appeal we want the second planned phase of the SIMCAP project to consider this seriously and address it.”

In response to the request, Permanent Secretary of the MECDM Dr Melchior Mataki said this issue has been a long standing request to have two sectors under the ministry of Mines, Energy and Rural Election which is the seismology and hydrology sectors to transfer meteorology service under the MECDM.

“I would say maybe there are reasons why they set these systems historically but we need to relook at it and consider it in terms of early warning aspects,” he said.

BY LYNTON AARON FILIA

SIG sponsored students at the Solomon Islands national university (SINU) are calling on the national government to pay them their allowance.

It is now week-nine, and they have not yet received a cent from government.

This is unprecedented, as students say usually they receive their allowance around week three or four.

Mid-semester exams have passed, and countless assignments and practicals have gone – which the students have had to do without any support from their sponsor.

The students say every day in a tertiary institution requires a student to spend – they have been forced to endure the hardship of meeting the daily expenses on their own.

They give examples of student activities which need money – research online, printing, photocopying, text books and other students cost relate to schooling.

“We wish responsible authorities speed up and process our allowance because we desperately need them because it is meant for our academic purposes.

“For semester one, no any allowance SIG students receive yet, we really affected and any failure of course it is due such delay because nowadays everything is money.

“Make it worst it’s already week nine and still we do not have course books, and it’s almost exams and allowance should not paid when semester one ends.”

Currently, Solomon Islands National University Student Association (SINUSA) is taking on strike for SINU to improve students’ welfare and allowance would be their next talk-about issue.

BY BARNABAS MANEBONA

TWO ministers under Central Islands provincial government have been sacked last week, it was revealed in a letter by Premier Patrick Vasuni.

The two removed are the minister of agriculture and lands Polycarp Galaigu (MPA for-west Ngella, ward 8) and the minister of tourism Richard Vulo (MPA for central west Ngella, ward 2).

Contacting Mr Vasuni was not possible yesterday however, the deputy premier for CIP confirmed from report on Ngella’s social media Forum (Ngella Forum) that they were charged on the allegation of “unethical behaviours and repeated verbal threats of removing the current Premier”.

The deputy premier said their replacement will be done soon in which Kevin Liu (MPA for north Savo, ward 13) is to take on the agriculture and lands ministry while Matthew Taravu (MPA for south-east Ngella, ward 6) for tourism. Both sacked ministers will now join the non-executives.

Mr Vasuni in his letter to Mr Galaigu said his actions raises the issue of instability in which what the executive government wants is stability and all members should be deemed to abide by principles of solidarity.

Recently, Vasuni survived a move for a vote of no confidence by certain MPAs.

The notice for the move was said to be invalid because there are a certain number of days (around 7) for a notice to be cleared first before such move is valid. This was however not the approach the notice for the move was presented according to the Standing Order to meet criteria.

Vasuni is now only looking forward to move the province forward in terms of development and does not tolerate such disturbances that will affect the programmes for the province.

Other MPAs within CIP provincial government support the Premier’s intention, disagreeing with the move for motion then.

“Let us not disturb the current Executive Government to lead us because we only have a short time left before the provincial election takes place,” said MPAs.

Attempts for the sacked minister’s comments were not successful yesterday as Island Sun is still striving to get their side of comments.

BY ALFRED PAGEPITU

GIZO

A Solomon Airlines personnel has been arrested in Munda following suspected sabotage of a Twin Otter plane on Friday last week, it is reported.

Witnesses say the incident occurred around 4pm that day, in which the suspect was said to deliberately puncture the tyre of the plane with a sharp object.

They add that the incident happened in front of the Munda airport.

Noro police say the suspect had been accompanied to Honiara via the dash-8 plane later that day to Honiara.

Witnesses say the incident stemmed on an argument between two personnel of the SolAir over flight rescheduling – one had wanted to spend the night in Munda, while the suspect had insisted on returning to Honiara.

It is understood that the Twin Otter was flown back to Honiara the next day (Saturday) after a technical team from Honiara were flown over to fix the problem. No injuries was reported.