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Work on proposed single use plastic ban in progress: MECDM

Written by
Ofani Eremae
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Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management and Meteorology (MECDM) Dr Melchior Mataki

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Environment Climate Change Disaster Management and Meteorology (MECDM), Dr Melchior Mataki says a regulation to ban single use plastics in the country has already been approved by cabinet and “not awaiting cabinet endorsement” as carried by the national broadcaster SIBC yesterday.

PS Mataki says in his remarks he was elaborating on the process the Ministry took to get endorsement for the regulation, which included seeking cabinet endorsement.

 “Under the Environment Act the minister has the power to make regulations but because banning is a very strong measure as there are also trade and financial implications, the ban will mean setting aside some materials which cannot be imported, manufactured, and used in the country. This is the reason why we sought cabinet’s endorsement,” Mr Mataki said. 

He added the Regulation for the proposed plastic ban is currently on its drafting stage. 

A joint Technical Working Committee (TWC) led by the Ministry of MECDM is working together with the Attorney Generals Chamber on the drafting instruction for the regulation.

Meanwhile the TWC held its fourth meeting yesterday.

In its deliberations, the TWC mapped out its awareness strategies that is expected to be rolled out very soon.

The campaign will include the use of the mainstream media, social media, Public Bill Boards, radio and TV spots, Flyers and Public talks.

The campaign will also include provinces.

The TWC also noted that consultation with sectors such as Importers, Manufacturers and Distributors is very important for the success of this undertaking, therefore the TWC has already sent out notices for consultations through the Solomon Islands Chamber of Commerce and Industries (SICCI) with its members.

For those who import, manufacture and use single use plastics on a daily basis, this will be tough and so to allow for a smooth transition into a total ban of single use plastics for both businesses and individuals in the country, the implementation will be done in phases to allow for plastic stock already purchased to be dispensed with and minimise losses to the affected businesses in the transition to banning.

–MECDM PRESS

MPG to step up its internal revenue collection

Written by
Samie Waikori
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BY SAMIE WAIKORI

MALAITA provincial government says it will step up its revenue mobilisation strategy in the current fiscal year 2023/2024 as it begins March 2023 – April 2024.

Deputy Provincial Secretary, who is the acting PS of Malaita province, Mr David Filia Tuita said yesterday as responsible division within MPG is projecting plans for revenue collection this new fiscal year.

He said this is one of the areas MPG needs to strengthen in order to improve delivery of services in the province.

Chief Planning Officer, Mr Peter Herehura recently said that internal revenue makes-up more than three-quarters of ward grants, which distribute by MPAs through mini projects in their wards across the province.

He said the province faces lot of hindrances in its revenue collection in the past years like; covid-19 and challenges on its revenue mobilization strategy that need stepping-up.

Minister for Finance and Treasury under the Fini led MNGFR, Hon Randol Sifoni also uttered need for MPG to strengthen its revenue collection.

He said over the past years MPG forgone substantial amount of tax under its internal revenue due to weakness on its revenue mobilization strategy.

Sifoni said data has proven that MPG’s past internal revenue collection had not exceeded an average of SBD6 million, although the province is capable to collect more than that.

He said there is still weakness in the treasury division to manage the revenue collection.

Sifoni said the weakness include lack of financial leadership and human resources including a senior revenue officer, logistic and general implementation of the province’s revenue mobilization strategies.

He said there is huge potential to increase provincial tax base through effective team networking between local business owners, WDCs, the administration and assembly.

Sifoni said his ministry is committed to step-up the strategy with the support from all stakeholders during this fiscal year.

BIG ONES BLAMED

Written by
Mavis Podokolo
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Prime Minister, Manasseh Sogavare

PM Sogavare hits out at huge global emitting countries, bringing climate change to Parliament

BY JENNIFER KUSAPA

PRIME Minister Manasseh Sogavare has blamed the “big countries” for the causes and effects of climate change on small countries like Solomon Islands.

In his speech on the floor of Parliament yesterday he highlighted that the climate change situation in the country has “worsened and cause damages to existing infrastructures”.

Sogavare did not specify which countries, but local climate change pundits believe it to be huge global emitters like the United States, China, Russia, European Union, India, etc.

The prime minister said rising sea levels in most cases have cut off wharves from the land.

“Roads have been inundated by sea. For example, there are some parts of the northern road in Malaita that the sea has already washed away.

“These are effects of climate change on our infrastructures. Climate change that is not caused by us but by countries who are big emitters, and we bear the consequences of their actions.

“I would like to see these countries take more responsibility by helping us adapt through building of more climate resilient infrastructures.

“In some of our communities’ villages must be relocated but our challenge is the funds to relocate these villages.

“What is being done now in terms of support by those who cause this is not enough.

“To add insult to injury, access to Climate Change Funds is very difficult.

“This needs to change,” PM Sogavare said.

Sogavare also thanked the multilateral and bilateral partners who have assisted, and are assisting, in maintaining the existing infrastructures and building new ones.

Meanwhile Member of Aoke Langalanga and as the Leader of Opposition called on the government to prioritise the relocation programme that was planned to have happened in 2020.

He said the Minister responsible and the government must provide an update on the progress of those activities.

Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body which advises the UN on rising global temperature, released its synthetic report on March 20 this year, warning what many say could be earth’s final window of hope to turn things around.

The report, which sums up research work of thousands of scientists over a span of eight years, called for emission cuts by around 50 percent and for countries to bring their net-zero targets forward by 10 years.

IPCC chair Hoesung Lee describes huge emitting countries’ weak commitments in his sobering phrase to launch the report – “We are walking when we should be sprinting”.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres describes the situation as “The climate time-bomb is ticking.”

Mankind’s goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius looks to be out of reach. Already we have reached 1.1 degrees C.

And, in the 2030s, just seven years away, with the current rate of emission, we could hit 1.5 degrees C.

The World Economic Forum predicts that 1.5 degrees C will dramatically increase the risk of extreme weather events, more frequent wildfires with higher intensity, sea level rise, and changes in flood and drought patterns with implications for food systems collapse, among other adverse impacts.

Solomon Islands will continue to see extreme weather activities such as what transpired in February this year when two cyclones formed on our shores just a week apart.

NASA predicts that six percent of the insects, eight percent of the plants and four percent of the vertebrates will see their climatically determined geographic range reduced by more than half.

‘Disaster in the making’

Written by
Ofani Eremae
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The four storey hotel building under construction at the Rove Seafront.

BY SAMSON SADE

FREELANCE JOURNALIST

The inaction by authorities to act decisively to demolish the hotel development at the Rove Seafront bears the hallmark of corruption.

Work continues on the hotel despite expert reports explicitly calling for total demolition because of the threat it poses to human life in the event of seismic activities.

This sentiment was echoed by a local developer who requested that his name be withheld for fear of retribution.

The call for demolition was contained in a 2018 ‘Structural Engineering Technical Review Report’ as a result of hosts of structural and engineering faults and failures.

The developer said it is sad that authorities are gambling with the lives of  people of Solomon Islands by allowing such shoddy work to continue.

“It is paramount that all structures whether it be a family dwelling, a hotel or a shop or whatever, must be built with human safety considerations,” he said.

He mentioned that had the hotel development locally owned, authorities would have sprung into action a long time ago.

Expert report said the structure will not be able to withstand high seismic events

The 2018 Structural Engineering Technical Review Report overtly recommended that the building be completely demolished and reconstructed because of non-compliant with SI building code, faulty and therefore unsafe for human habitation in any form or shape.

It is worth noting that Solomon Island is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire which is an area prone to very high seismic activities.

This indicates that a 0.4 – 0.5g peak ground acceleration with an equivalent seismic base sheer force of about 40 – 50% is transmitted into the building during a code prescribed seismic event.

With a four storey Hotel Development sitting on a poorly reclaimed land with structural defects and failures to begin with, the result can be fatal.

“For this reason alone I wish to call on authorities to act immediately to prevent a future tragedy from happening,” the developer said.

According to the SI building Code with reference to modern day structural engineering, it is mandatory that a building must be designed and constructed to satisfy the performance requirements stipulated in the relevant codes.

For the structural component of a building, the key performance requirement is to ensure the structure does not fail, collapse and injure or kill building users.

Sadly, the Hotel Development at the Rove Seafront is structurally non-compliant and in the event of seismic activities, a structural collapse is imminent.

Government encourages donors to support PCDF

Written by
Ben Bilua
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Minister of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening, Rollen Seleso

BY BEN BILUA

THE government through the Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening (MPGIS) encourages donors partners to use the Provincial Capacity Development Fund (PCDF) modality to deliver development aid to nine provinces.

Speaking to leaders of Western Province last week, Minister of MPGIS, Rollen Seleso said the Solomon Islands Government has seen tangible results of more than 1,500 projects that have so far been delivered in the provinces in the past 13 years under PCDF.

He said World Bank has approved a loan worth SBD50 million to invest in resilience economic infrastructures under an Integrated program marked for all nine provinces.

Seleso said the government is pleased that donor partners are slowly building confidence because of the accountability, transparency, and nature of the PCDF model.

He adds that donor partners are ready to put more resources into the program to support provinces with development plans and aspirations.

Positive audit report for Western Province

Written by
Ben Bilua
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BY BEN BILUA

WESTERN Province has been doing very well in its annual audit for over eleven years.

According to Minister of Provincial Government, Rollen Seleso, audit exercises carried out by the Office of the Auditor General since 2012 show Western Province sitting as the second-best province.

“Had it not been the successive executive government decisions to keep the Western Provincial Investment Corporation without accounting for the investments, WPG would have been the first province to achieve a clean audit report amongst the nine provinces,” he said.

Seleso said the three weeks workshop which is currently underway at Gizo will pave way for improvement as provincial staff and Province members will learn code knowledge that would deliver the best outcomes.

He told Western Province’s leaders that the PGSP Joint Oversight Committee approved Clean Audit Report as a minimum condition by 2024.

“This will be further highlighted in various presentations in the next couple of weeks.

“I, therefore, urge Western Provincial Executive to focus on attaining clean audit reports to be able to access development funding course by complying with the WPG FMO and the Financial Instructions,” Seleso said.

GUALE TALKS DEVELOPMENT

Written by
Jennifer Kusapa
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Premier Francis Sade speaking to the Landowners during the open forum of the Ruaniu land.

Premier consults with landowners on development

BY JENNIFER KUSAPA

THE Premier of Guadalcanal Province is moving forward in achieving better development in the best interest of the people.

Premier Francis Sade this week opened a forum to hear landowners’ views about their land and issues holding them back from developing them.

Mr Sade told the landowners that they need to sort out their differences and open up their land for development so that they can benefit from it.

He said Ruaniu land is 250 hectares and there are investors who are interested but landowners need to first open up their land for development.

“I have interests in those alienated for investments as last week, I went to Gizo for the Premiers meeting and we have agreed that the Government should give us the Federal system in 2026 that was in the communique.

“So, when I look back to us Guadalcanal province, we are not prepared for the State Government, because there was no investment in Guadalcanal, we have no township, Honiara is not ours, Honiara belongs to the national Government,” Premier Sade said.

He said when they were elected into the Provincial Executive they identified four areas to have their township and in order to develop the township, the Province needs to have developments.

And there is a need to open up developments from Henderson to Marau and Kakabona to Variana land, Sade said.

Therefore, all alienated land within those areas need to be identified and who owns the land – whether it is a perpetual title still under the commissioner of lands or already given back to the people.

“That is the only way forward for landowners and the communities and once we are not allowing our land to be developed then we are not going to benefit from our land when we adopt the State Government system,” Sade said.

He also told the landowners that the province is willing to support in any way to resolve any issues between tribes and families before development can take place.

Meanwhile women leaders and chiefs who attended the meeting agreed to the idea initiated by the Premier.

During the consultation a task force was also set up to consult with communities who reside in Ruaniu land about the idea and will provide feedback to the Provincial Executive.

Premier Sade also thanked the women, young people, chiefs and elders who attended the consultation for supporting his call to have an open forum about developments on their land.

By-election activity in West Kwara’ae

Written by
Samie Waikori
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BY SAMIE WAIKORI

THE Electoral Team in Auki will publish the second notice of electoral activities for West Kwara’ae constituency by-election soon.

Election Manager for the by-election, also PS acting for Malaita province, Mr David Filia Tuita told SunAuki yesterday, “We look forward to publish the second notice of the by-election soon. The notice will involve binning -up of voters list at polling stations in the constituency.”

He said other election activities carried out so far include; awareness on the by-election and others as well as the recent nomination of candidates and ballot paper draw.

Tuita said after publishing the second notice, they also look forward for the RO’s notice of election that will include; polling hours, candidate and nominator details to put-up on May 10.

He said other activity will be the appointment of counting agents and polling agents that will be on May 14.

Tuita said by that time, it will be less than two weeks before the polling day as preparation will be mounted for polling day on May 24.

He said all candidates also aware that the last day of campaigning will be on May 22, just a day away from the polling.

Tuita said so far, all activities for the by-election have been running smoothly, while they hope for a peaceful and successful by-election for West Kwara’ae constituency.

Ballot paper draw for West Kwara’ae by-election done

Written by
Samie Waikori
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Ballot paper draw at Buma.

BY SAMIE WAIKOR

THE Electoral Team in Auki conducted a ballot paper draw for the West Kwara’ae constituency by-election at the nomination centre in Buma last Friday.

The ballot paper draw was to determine the numbering of candidates’ names in sequence and how they will appear on the ballot paper during polling day.

Election Manager for the by-election, Mr David Filia Tuita who is also the Provincial Secretary acting for Malaita province told SunAuki yesterday, “We completed the ballot paper draw for West Kwara’ae constituency by-election on Friday last week.”

Candidates’ names as it will appear on ballot paper;   

 Names of CandidatesPolitical Party
1Solomon ManuiIndependent
2Bernard GaleIndependent
3Solomon KaluIndependent
4David LidimaniIndependent
5Alex IduriIndependent
6Alfred TaendoIndependent
7Fred RamoliSolomon Islands Democratic Party
8Ivan TonafaleaIndependent
9Wilson MaeIndependent
10Jerrylim LaufiluSolomon Islands United Party
11Alfred JM TuasuliaIndependent
12Ismael Rocky KakoIndependent

Tuita said a total of 12 candidates were nominated and after the lapse of the date for withdrawal on Friday, April 14, none of them did.

He said out of the 12 candidates, two will contest under political parties while the rest are independent candidates.

Murder case returns to court

Written by
Jennifer Kusapa
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0

BY JENNIFER KUSAPA

THE case of a murder accused will appear again in court on Wednesday this week for mention.

This is for counsels to confirm and sort issues before the trial date on April 24.

David Tingi is charged with one count of murder in relation to an incident at Peochakuri village in South Guadalcanal on May 6, 2022.

Allegations said the defendant and the deceased had an argument prior to the incident. The defendant allegedly struck a hammer on the victim’s head and continued to punch the victim whilst he was on the ground.

Due to the alleged attack the victim sustained serious injuries. The victim was transported to the National Referral Hospital for medical treatment unfortunately the victim later died several days after.

Police alleged that the cause of the incident started with an argument in which the deceased was alleged to have attempted to rape his own daughter on several occasions prior to the murder incident.

Office of the Director Public Prosecution appears for the crown.

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