Acting President of Reunification Movement for Change, Charlot Salwai, has praised the people of Efate for recognising the importance of allowing people from around the country to live and work in Port Vila and Efate to develop Vanuatu.
On the same note he says it is RMC’s policy to increase tax base opportunities in other islands and Provinces also to ease overcrowdedness in Port Vila and Luganville.
He calls on Tafea, Malampa, Penama and Torba Provincial Councils to work closely with landowners to create more tax base opportunities in their respective jurisdictions.
He encourages the declaration of more public lands to promote investment opportunities to develop into new towns.
“This will create more revenue earning opportunities to encourage millionaire investors to invest their wealth in the islands also,” Salwai says.
The advantage of development and partnership agreement on Efate is that landowners can negotiate directly with potential foreign investors on a joint investment deal – a knowledge and experience custom landowners in other provinces have yet to acquire.
Looking into the recent past, the political leader says the Government has already tar sealed Lonorore Airport on his island, for example.
While there are no hotel or resorts on Pentecost yet, he says when he was Minister for Internal Affairs, he paved the way by making sure the law was passed for Area Councils to be set up in the Provinces.
“While the Provincial Government Councils are still a long way from Shefa and Sanma Provincial Government Councils, the other Provincial Government Councils must start to learn from Port Vila and Luganville to help their Area Councils to operate their mini governments,” Salwai says.
“We have set up our Provinces but we have not equipped them to earn their own money. We must help them to increase their respective tax base by way of using our main resource which is land.
“RMC policy is not to buy out a plot of land without any chance of continuing benefit to be enjoyed by the landowner. What we want to see is an agreed arrangement where the custom landowner continues to benefit from his land while the Central Government as well as Provincial Governments also benefit from the same land(s).”
He says such an arrangement may only need a new law or ministerial order.
The Acting President of RMC made his presentation during a public awareness workshop into the policies of the party at the Sportsman’s Hotel yesterday morning.