stay at Qerasi

Solomon Islands

Police will

SOLOMON Islands police say they’ll continue to deploy field force personnel at Qerasi on north New Georgia where chiefs and landowners are trying to close logging operations. Assistant police commissioner operations John Homelo said a fresh contingent of field force personnel had been dispatched to monitor the situation at logging camps owned by Golden

Springs International.

He said the new contingent replaced the first one sent to the troubled areas a month ago. Homelo described the situation there as quiet but unpredictable.

Meanwhile, the Western Province police commander, Dick Alenia, said his officers had not been recalled from Qerasi for the same reasons. A total of eight bulldozers were burnt by angry landowners following a dispute with the company over their logging agreement.

Call made for

change to government

THERE has been a call for a change to the Solomon Islands form of government as a way forward for the country’s future.

The premier of the Solomon Islands’ Western Province, Arthur Unusu, said his government wanted the country to adopt the federal system of government as a way to control its fast depleting forest resources.

Unusu said his province was fed up with requesting more devolution of powers to enable it to have more control over its natural resources without any success.

He said the Western Province had only been paid lip service for the exploitation of its resources for the last 10 years. Unusu said the federal system of government had been agreed to by the Premiers’ Conference in 1992 but no further progress had been made to date.