$19M aid promised to Solomon Islands

Press, 21 July 1986, Page 8

$19M aid promised to Solomon Islands

NZPA-AAPSuva The Solomon Islands has sought and been promised $19.8 million for 20 rehabilitation programmes after Cyclone Namu which killed more than 100 people and devastated the country in May.

Pledges of assistance were made by Australia, Britain, New Zealand, the European Economic Community and agencies of the United Nations and the United States at a twoday meeting in the Solomon Island capital of Honiara last week.

New Zealand will provide about $1.45 million while Australia comes up with the largest sum (about $7.5 million).

Details of the rehabilitation programme were given in Suva yesterday by the United Nations De.velopment Programme representative at the “joint aid donors” conference, Mr Ross Mountain. He said the Solomon

islands Government sought $19.8 million for 20 programmes in agriculture and fisheries, education, health, rural housing, roads and bridges. Mr Mountain praised a seven-week survey of the cyclone damage made by the Solomons National Disaster Council in Guadalcanal and Malaita, the two worst-hit provinces. "The survey was a real success story,” he said. “It drew up priority rehabilitation projects and enabled us to go a long way towards meeting the Solomons’ needs.”

In a report to the conference, the National Disaster Council’s chairman, Mr Milner Tazaka, graphically described how the cyclone "slowly and savagely” spread through the Solomons.

The survey showed that on Malaita, losses included 47 per cent of housing, 65 per cent of gardens, 45 per cent of

coconut palms and 30 per cent of cocoa trees.

On Guadalcanal, site of Honiara, the figures were 23 per cent of housing, 70 per cent of gardens, and 25 to 30 per cent of cash crops.

Cattle, pig and chicken projects also were severely damaged. Mr Tazaka said priority needs after the initial rebuilding included rehabilitation of coconuts and cocoa, the main cash crops, the livestock industry, rural water supplies, schools, roads and bridges.

The Solomons Minister for Economic Planning, Mr Robert Bera, put the cost of the cyclone in money terms at between S33M and $36.5M or 13 per cent of the nation’s gross national product and 26 per cent of its total export earnings. It had virtually doubled

the estimated balance-of-payments deficit for 198688 to $72.6 million. Mr Bera said the Solomon Islands would lose 10 to 15 per cent of its palm oil production, 15 to 20 per cent of copra and 10 to 25 per cent of cocoa production over the next three years. He predicted that the Solomons’ economy would take seven years to recover from the cyclone.