Keep visitors book, Assistant Minister tells

Cawaki advises villagers on ways to keep tabs on their development

In order to keep tabs on development, all village headmen have been urged to keep a visitors book.

The Assistant Minister for Agriculture, Rural and Maritime Development and National Disaster Management Joeli Cawaki had issued this advice during his recent visit to Yadua Island in the Bua Province.

This was after villagers had raised concerns that some of the issues brought up during the last maritime tour had still not been attended to. Some of these requests included a village footpath, solar panels for the villagers and the delay of social welfare forms already submitted to the respective department. During Mr Cawaki’s follow-ups, the village headman failed to submit the name of officers who had made these dealings with them. “It is important that you keep the name, designation and phone numbers of Government officials who visit your shores for any kinds of development,” Mr Cawaki told the villagers. “You see Government officials change all the time and during follow-ups, as such, we would be able to contact them and ask them what you are asking us now so we can get an update on these developments in question.” Mr Cawaki said while Government was doing their best to attend to people’s request, their involvement played an integral part in bringing these developments to life. Denimanu Village headmen on Yadua Island, Meli Rokobuli, in an interview said: “We greatly appreciate this visit from Government and we will surely act on this wakeup call.”

Mr Rokobuli has since started listing names of officials present during the consultation.

There are 172 villagers on the island. Edited by Jonathan Bryce