It is indeed pleasant to see our nation jubilant about the success achieved in our bid for the 2023 Pacific Games. Now it is time for us to start working. To kick start the preparation stage, the Ministry of Home Affairs, NOCSI and the National Sports Council have produced a draft Implementation Programme at their meeting on Wednesday 24th May 2016.
The Implementation Programme was produced on the basis of the contractual obligations, requirements and timelines set out in the Host Agreement signed between Solomon Islands and the Pacific Games Council.
The Implementation Programme sets out plans to have essential establishments in place as soon as possible. The following must be created or established as soon as possible:
[1] Enactment of the Hosting of Pacific Games Act.
The Hosting of Pacific Games Act must be enacted quickly by the National Parliament, preferably by June 2016.Drafting instructions have been approved by the Cabinet in February 2016.
We will want to review the drafting instructions with the view to make some changes and improvements. We will soon meet the Legislative drafters at the Attorney General’s Chambers to discuss the proposed Bill and request them to expedite drafting of the Bill.
Stakeholders, eg, Sporting Federations, will be consulted to express their views or make their contributions before the final Bill is produced for presentation to Cabinet.
The Bill will establish statutory organs like the Games Authority, the Organising Committee, Audit & Governance Committee and other bodies.
[2] PG Preparation & Steering Committee.
Whilst awaiting enactment of the Hosting of Pacific Games Act, we will propose to the Cabinet that a Preparation & Steering Committee be established to drive the Implementation Programme.
[3] PG Games 2023 Office & Co-ordination Center
It is essential that an office space be secured now for PG 2023 Office and to serve as the Co-ordination Center.
The office must be well resourced and be furnished with office supplies and computers. Competent persons must be recruited to administer and manage the preparation and implementation programmes.
[4] Budget costing
Budget costing will be an important activity for planning purposes. This is an activity that has to be pursued quickly. This is an essential tool for the Government to make decision on and to find the funding.
The Implementation Programme also sets out plans to secure and prepare land sites for construction of the national stadium and other sporting facilities. In this regard, we will continue our discussion with SINU to sign an MOU with it for purposes of developing their sports ground at Panatina and Kukum Campuses.
We will also hold discussions with KG VI School with view of negotiating an MOU for development of the sporting grounds at KG VI School.
As for Burns Creek, that land is owned by the National Sports Council and so we request the people squatting on the NSC to cooperate and not to hinder development of sporting facilities on the NSC land. We intend to visit the people at Burns Creek and to explain our development plans to them so that they could prepare well ahead of time for their vacation of the land.
We will also hold dialogue with the Honiara City Council to discuss their sporting facilities and to discuss how we could improve on their facilities to meet required international standards for use during the Pacific Games 2023.
We have been working on architectural designs and will continue to consider other designs and to cater for the 24 sports SI will host in 2023.
These are the immediate tasks which we must attend to now, but there are important tasks as well which we must attend to as well as we proceed with our Implementation Programme.
Last Modified on 27/05/2016 15:10