QUESTIONS have been posed to the Press Office of the Office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet late Friday 20 August 2021] alleging that a passenger flight arrived the previous day [Thursday 19 August 2021] and asked why the government went back on its words to allow the passenger flight. There was no approved incoming passenger flight to the country on Thursday as alleged. The government approved a chartered repatriation flight that arrived on Friday morning, 20 th August 2021], from Papua New Guinea to repatriate 63 Indonesian nationals from Solomon Islands to Indonesia via Port Moresby. Unfortunately, 4 Solomon Island citizens being the dependents of the late Solomon Islands High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea, who had been stranded in Port Moresby and were not able to travel on the charter flight that repatriated the late High Commissioner due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, decided on their own accord and against government advise to board the Friday morning flight. A total of 5...

BY GEORGINA KEKEA More than AUD$21,000 was raised for the victims of the recent world war two bomb explosion in Honiara by retired Australians.   At the annual Australian Grey Nomads camp held from 7 - 15 May in Australia, the participants rallied together to raise funds after hearing news of the tragedy.   Former pastors and missionaries who had worked in Solomon Islands were part of the camp for retirees who rallied together to raise funds for the victims and their families.   As reported by the Adventist Record Pastor Ray Eaton who was in attendance said the whole camp got behind the project.   “It was very enthusiastically supported”, Eaton said. Retired adults, known as Grey Nomads participating in an event  at the camp (Photo by Adventist Record) The Grey Nomads camp brought together more than 470 retirees from all over the country except Western Australia to Stuarts Point Convention Centre (NSW) where their program was held.   Pastor Eaton said the ...

BY GEORGINA KEKEA VANUATU is the biggest importer of canned tuna from Solomon Islands. National Fisheries Development (NFD) Limited Managing Director, Frank Wickham shared this information in a recent radio talkback show to mark World Tuna Day. Wickham says the biggest export destination for SolTuna’s canned tuna is Vanuatu. “Followed by Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the market is now open in New Zealand. There is a big move now to promote and market in New Zealand and Australia. We have containers going to Kiribati, Tuvalu with a few to Tonga and Marshall Islands. The biggest of them all is Vanuatu”, Wickham said. He says domestically the consumption of tuna is growing annually making Solomon  Islands one of the biggest canned tuna consumption per capita in the world. “Two years ago it was like more than 800,000 cartons a year. which means for every woman, man and child in the country, they consume one carton a year. So if you look at 48 tin cans in one carton, it is almost one ...

BY GEORGINA KEKEA “People in glass houses must not throw stones,” Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare told parliament. Sogavare’s comments were made in response to criticisms made by Transparency Solomon Islands (TSI) on the Constituency Development Funds (CDF). TSI recently in a statement said they are concerned to see the increase of the CDF to $6.8 million. TSI says this is the second highest CDF allocation for the constituencies through their Members of Parliament (MPs).  “To allocate this amount of money for the Constituencies at a time when the country is going through an economic and health crisis is very irresponsible of the MPs, regardless of which side of the house they are in”, TSI said. TSI said to allocate such an amount to go through this ‘failed and very corrupt scheme’ at a time when the country needs to address the health crisis by way of doing something about the delipidated state of health and medical infrastructures is beyond understanding, common sense and is not ...