Guadalcanal Provincial Premier Hon. Anthony Veke center flanked by
Choiseul Provincial Premier Hon. Jackson Kiloe on his left and Makira-
Ulawa Provincial Premier Hon. Stanley Siapu on his right yesterday at
the National Dialogue, Heritage Park Hotel, Honiara

GUADALCANAL Premier Hon Anthony Veke updated the National Dialogue on Guadalcanal Leaders Dialogue and Summit (GLDS) resolutions 2016.

Premier Veke has the honour to be the first provincial Premier to speak at the two-day dialogue yesterday at Heritage Park hotel, Honiara.

Hon Veke updated the National Dialogue floor on GLDS resolutions reached last year and ways forward the province has taken to realise those resolutions.

“There were 23 resolutions reached during our GLDS last year, some are very specific whilst other are very general, all in all we believe the resolutions are inclusive,” Hon Veke said.

“Important to highlight here was a thought provoking presentation by Dr. Tarcisius with which he introduced the ‘alternate way of thinking’ for Guadalcanal people as the way forward. For example, instead of seeing Honiara as a liability to Guadalcanal people, we are now seeing it as an asset.”

He then continued to point out two major wishes of Guadalcanal people as in resolutions three and four respectively. The former is to have the Federal System of governance adopted and the latter is to introduce a new land legislation that would facilitate customary land reform, and the return of all alienated land on Guadalcanal Province. All other resolutions can be clustered into economic, social, infrastructures, cultural, governance, peace and natural resources.

“These resolutions are the voices and wishes of our people. Therefore unlike previous dialogues and summit resolutions, the provincial government now is determined to implement those resolutions. The executive government of the day has taken the resolutions to the floor of the full Assembly February 2017 and had it formally adopted therein. Hence the document is now an official provincial document and Guadalcanal Provincial Government (GPG) has taken ownership off it.

“These resolutions will provide basis for policy processes and frameworks of GPG now and into the future,” Veke told the participants.

He furthers that, to realise those resolutions, GPG has tasked an office to coordinate the resolution’s implementations and they shall be engaging recent Guadalcanal university graduates who are seeking jobs or to be interns to attach with the new office.

Guadalcanal province henceforth is working within its limited capacity in a slow but surely manner progressing with some of the resolutions; work on ring-roads and trans-insular roads is progressing, scholarships for Guadalcanal students successful, the launch of Guadalcanal Women policy and the proposed Guadalcanal Land Summit 2017 are but to name a few.

The two day National Dialogue provides an opportunity for the recommendations and resolutions emerging from various dialogues to be synthesised and reflected upon to map out a solution-based future to socio-cultural, economic, political and other developmental challenges facing the country. It hopes to pave a way forward with sustainable peace and stability effecting regional and national developmental aspiration. The dialogue will end today June 20.

–G-PROVINCE PRESS