Permanent facilities to be used for 6th MAFest

BY SAMIE WAIKORI

THE sixth Melanesian Arts Festival will be hosted using permanent facilities.

Mr Andrew Nihopara, permanent secretary for Ministry of culture and tourism and chairman to the festival’s organising committee, reveals this, adding that the 2012 Festival of Pacific Arts has taught them a lot of questions.

“There are lot of positive things came out from the particular event hosted and there were lot of lessons learned as well.

“Which we built infrastructure and the system that we would like to approach in hosting the 6th Melanesian Festival.

“The government’s commitment to host the event is looking at bigger events like the 2023 South pacific Game and other future events.

“That will help us test our capacity to host the event and at the same time create necessary capacity in terms of accommodation, activity and attraction where people can engage in long-term,” he said.

Nihopara said with the proposed budget they have for this event they are looking at a long-term approach – for this event and future ones.

“We want to invest in facilities that will be the host for the festival next year, but long-term they can also use for other activities.

“This is some of the long-term outcomes the committee is looking at for the event that will be hosted.

“And one of such is the Honiara Craft Market Centre project which will shortly be implemented,” he said.

Nihopara said the craft market is a facility they want to invest in as a craft market for Honiara and also earmark for the official festival village during the 6th Melanesian Festival.

He said having in place the facilities are very important as they also contribute a lot to the development of the tourism and cultural sectors in the country.

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