ROAD NETWORK

Road Network

During the quarter Hon Rick Hou initiated discussions with the land owners on renovation work on the first segment of the old ring road around the island.  As planned the first segment is the Matangasi /Parasi segment.  Hon Rick Hou plans to focus on the next segment Parasi/Suupeine.  Already he has secured SIG funding for the first segment and now awaits engineering assessments to be carried and hopefully the contractor will sign contract with the Ministry of Infrastructure Development (MID) for work to start before end of this year. 

Work on the interior access road is also progressing by the logging operator from Paeni. However, of late, this has been hampered by road blocks.  This is expected to continue as logging operations in the area is already becoming  source of contention among resource owners.  

In keeping with procedures new zone committees were elected – which saw some new members in some of the committees.  Early in January both the old and new chairs were called to attend DC meetings at the SMC HQ in Afio, when two meetings of the DC were convened on 8^th and 9^th January.  The old DC met first which reviewed the SMC 2012 program of activities: including the 2012 Budget outcomes, Project deliveries and the 2012 – 2015 Infrastructure Development Program.  The new DC met after which it considered and approved the 2013 Budget and the revised 2013 – 2015 Infrastructure Development Program. The details of these outcomes have been finalized and will be posted on the SMC Blog. Hon R N Hou returned to Honiara on 10 January 2013 by speed boat.