BY MYRNE LIVETT
People from the east, northeast and north of Guadalcanal are now looking for opportunities to earn a living in Central Guadalcanal Constituency.
In their hustle to earn a better income to sustain their families, a new squatter mushroomed in the Tenaru land area. The most obvious activity of the influx is the popular Corona Market.
Steven Koitevo of North Guadalcanal and Henry Tagu of east Guadalcanal are two of the Fathers who decided to make their second homes in the Tenaru area, Malango in their daily pursuit to earn regular and consistent income.
“I’m selling bbq chicken and rice at $25 dollars a plate daily, and sometimes I do that throughout nighttime until morning,” Mr Koitevo who’s originally from Najilagu GPPOL 1 said.
“My customers are the vendors here, people from Town and nightclub goers in the vicinity,” He said.
Koitevo said he’s engaging in his street business for a year now and said that he has experienced peak days as well as slow days in his street business.
This is no longer a village, this is part of town and so transport to town is easy, for me to travel to shops in the CBD to buy chickens fish and ingredients.
“Cost of living now is very high compared to past years, one of the main reasons why I’m doing this is to meet my children’s school fees. I have two children doing form five and form one.
“For us living here, we must do something to earn money every day because everything we need or want, one has to pay for it to sustain us.
“Money comes every time but it soon goes away because everything requires money,” The Father said.
Add on to that, Mr Tegu who had travelled further from the east side of Guadalcanal said, he has to hustle day in and day out in order to be able to meet his family’s needs.
“I’ve done this for five months now because we have a family to feed and school fees now are expensive. So I decided to set up here, at the roadside where I can get customers,” He said.
Mr Tagu said he enjoyed his street bbq at the Corona Market.
However, squatters in central Guadalcanal are not from other parts of the province, but illegal settlers from other provinces who move east-ward from burns creek and lunga area, seeking ways to earn income because they are not able to find it in Honiara City.
