Government Support for Tina River Hydro Project Communities Starts

The “whole of government” approach supporting Tina River Hydro Project has started with the education sector. Communities in the Tina River Communities of Bahomea and Malango in Central Guadalcanal have been targeted by the Ministry of Education for priority in developing primary school facilities. The Ministry of Education has already started building three classrooms in three different areas of Malango and Bahomea.

One is at Betivatu School in Malango and the other two are at Antioch and Rate in Bahomea.

This initiative materialized after a government Taskforce meeting in September which heard that government services have not been getting to the communities of Central Guadalcanal although they live so close to the capital.

Permanent Secretary Dr Fred Isom Rohorua said these rapid investments were possible only because his Ministry recently recruited an Infrastructure Officer.

“This was also possible because some money was available at the end of the year.

“As soon as I came back from the Taskforce meeting, I instructed staff to look at how we could improve facilities in the Malango and Bahomea region,” he said.
The Ministry of Infrastructure Development is also expected to work on a new road as well as upgrade existing ones in Malango and Bahomea next year.

The Tina River Hydro Taskforce is a body composed of mainly permanent secretaries of the various technical and relevant ministries that oversees and advises the Tina River Hydro Project Office.

Another important function of the taskforce is to ensure that Government services are delivered to the communities within the catchment of the hydro project.

Communities of the area repeatedly raised strong concerns about the lack of real service delivery by government in their area during various awareness programs conducted by the Tina River Hydro Development Project staff last year and this year.