Luganville

Until April 28 2020, all quality tests undertaken for food, drinks and other bi-products are done in the Port Vila laboratory.

According to VBS Chief Executive Officer Ruth Amos, the lab based at Agriculture College will benefit most producers up North, especially kava producers who export their products overseas.

Upon VBS request, the Board of the Vanuatu Agriculture College gave the go- ahead to use an empty laboratory at the college to house VBS equipment, which will be used to conduct quality tests.

“The shipment of goods should have arrived on Monday but the lockdown in Malekula following the COVID 19 scare forced the crew and the captain of the Pacific Star to be put in quarantine for nearly four days,” Mr Festa explained.

Before the delivery he thanked Port Vila based companies like Au Bon Marche, Vila Hard Ware, Vate Beverage, Leong Hardware, Wilco Harware, Computer World, Vila Distribution and Cellovila for donating the items.

Port Vila and Luganville established sister city relations in 1997.

The ministry has begun distributing 1.2 tonnes of cassava and 211 trays of eggs to families that were affected by Tropical Cyclone Harold last week.

The cassava was sourced from the Agriculture farm and the eggs from Port Vila.

The National Disaster Management Office is expected to distribute imported food such as rice and canned meat Tuesday (today).

The MALFFB team will only distribute locally sourced food items. The same goes for other islands affected by TC Harold.

Matai Seremaiah returned to the country's second-largest town yesterday, and said it had been transformed by the direct hit from the category five Cyclone Harold this week.

He said two people died on Malo island, and he estimated more than a thousand people were in evacuation centres.

Mr Seremaiah said power had been restored to the hospital, but there was a dire need for water and shelter.

"When I got down yesterday I was just lost, just don't know where to start," he said.

All stationery such as books and teachers laptops were also destroyed.

Sanma Education Improvement Officer, Marcel Bonwel said they are still not aware of how the fire started.

He added that they had contacted the fire service immediately when the fire started raging, unfortunately when the fire truck arrived everything had already burnt down.

Bonwel said an investigation is underway and a report on the incident will be submitted to the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) soon.

The centre was made possible after a space was allocated by Luganville Municipal Council at Sarakata area for the construction of the NCD hub.

The council has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Health to work together in addressing NCDs.

Mayor of LMC, Peter Patty and staff of the council joined officials from the Ministry of Health (MoH) in the ground-breaking ceremony which was witnessed by partners including the World Health Organisation (WHO), last week Saturday.

Local favourites and 2019 Vanuatu champions Malampa Revivors will be joined by Fiji’s Lautoka FC, Lae City FC from Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands runners-up between 15 and 21 February at Luganville’s Soccer City Stadium to compete for two places up for grabs in the knock-out stages of the competition.

In a meeting last week in Luganville, Vanuatu Football Federation and Luganville based organisations have formalized a local organizing team that will deal with all the logistics and other ground work for the matches.

Direct and indirect consultations have begun with stakeholders from across government departments, NGOs and industry, including the Blue Green Network, to build strong, workable tourism practices as part of the Sanma Tourism Plan.

The Plan directly links to the sector policy, the Vanuatu Sustainable Tourism Policy 2018-2030 and the guiding principles of the National Sustainable Development Plan (NSDP 2016-2030, People’s Plan).

“We will revisit the sister city relations we signed between our two cities in 2012 to encompass mutual agreements that will better the lives of the citizens of Port Vila and Luganville,” Mr Daniel said.

The Luganville Mayor was in Port Vila last week to “mend the chains” of communication and assistance with government agencies and aid donor countries based in Port Vila.

The registration period runs until 26 June 2019.

Voters and residents from the Eastern Ward can  register at the Chapuis Stadium Fare.

Voters and residents in the Central ward will be registered at the Department of Women’s Affairs office while Sarakata Ward residents and voters will register at the Anglican Church.

West Ward residents and voters will be registered at the Anglican Church Mango station.