Manetiva calls for SIG & Premiers’ round table for urgent financial assistance

The Premier of Central Islands Province, Stanley Manetiva, has called on the government for a round table discussion for emergency funding under the Asian Development (ADB) $40m support as COVID effects begin to be felt by the provinces.

In a statement to SBMOnline this afternoon, Manetiva said: “I call on all premiers to make a round table with the DCGA Government to share portion of the money to all the nine provinces now – so that we can start building the quarantine and isolation centres in our respective provinces as we cannot sit and watch now.”

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on February 7^th announced the release of a $5 million (40.3 million Solomon Islands dollar) grant from its Pacific Disaster Resilience Program (Phase 3) to help finance the Government of Solomon Islands’ response to community transmission of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Manetiva said: “We heard about donors’ injecting funds into the health and medical services so because of this corona virus we need to be assisted now. Ministry of Health and Medical Services just only need to do the monitoring and evaluation. MPGIS (ministry of provincial government) has done it for all the provinces so we can say we can do the said infrastructures,” said the CIP Premier.”

He stressed: “My call is a humble one that I kindly urge the DCGA government to listen to cries now.”

Manetiva also extended his call to all his colleague premiers to come together to discuss this important issue to help their peoples.

CIP is one of the most affected provinces.

The latest data released by health yesterday is as follows:

• Honiara: 4,295 (75% of cases)
• Malaita: 703
• Western: 243
• Central Islands: 232
• Guadalcanal: 191
• Choiseul: 124
• Isabel: 63
• Makira: 40
• Temotu:0
• Rennell and Bellona: 0

News@SBMOnline2022