BY JOHN HOUANIHAU
PRIME Minister Jeremiah Manele and Dr. Jimmie Rodgers have announced that the Government for National Unity and Transformation (GNUT) is implementing plans to construct institutional residences.
“The GNUT’s key priority area is to build the Prime Minister’s house, and they are looking at it very seriously,” PM Manele said during his first official press conference held on Friday, May 10. “The priority is to build a residence for the Prime Minister and other important positions in the country, such as chief justice, opposition leader, or national parliament speaker.”
PM Manaele revealed that these are important State residence that his government would be looking at.
“That doesn’t mean that we will build all these in the next four years, but at least we start somewhere,’’ the PM said.
Likewise, the re-appointed Special Secretary to the Prime Minister’s Office, Dr. Jimmie Rodgers, also assured that the past DCGA government has several priority areas that call for institutional residences.
“So, of those we know, the Governor General (GG) has the official residence. So right now, this is the official residence of the prime minister. With regards to the progress on that, the location is at the former location for the GG area near the FFA.
“It’s been checked for unexploded ordinances (UXOs), and geo-tech has been done and was fenced. The design is complete, and now we are just looking to secure funding, and we hope to be able to start the construction before the end of this year,’’ Dr. Rodgers said.
He said that in addition to that, they have the design concepts now for the building of the Speaker of Parliament and Chief Justice.
“The three heads of the arms of the government We also have design concepts for the house for the Deputy Prime Minister and leader of opposition. So those are the institutional houses that we are working on.
“We will be looking at financing, so the idea is that whenever there is a there is a change of government, we cannot look for houses anymore. We have our institutional houses. Down the track, we are also looking at some sort of house for dignitaries and our visitors. When they come to the Solomon Islands, we will host them there.
“We already identified the land, and its government land, already available, fenced, and ready to be developed. So that’s the plan. The prime minister has endorsed that and it is a continuing priority of his government. So if we do that for the first time, we will have a house for our leaders,’’ Dr. Rodgers said.
Dr. Rodgers said that funds would be raised for the matter as allocating funds for the cause would make it difficult to put them in the government budget, which is one of the reasons for the delays.
“So we are looking at partners; we would love to have these built by the government because it’s a commitment of the government, so our negotiation with partners is whether, if they support the government in some budget support, then the government will allocate resources to build the houses.
“That’s the level of discussion we are having, but we are fairly confident we will be able to secure funding, at least for the first one,” the Special Secretary to the Prime Minister said.
