“Time is running out to implement the Pacific Games 2023 Act”

The Government has to provide a genuine excuse to the Pacific Games Council if it fails to honour its contract to commence relevant legislation.

Solomon Islands won the bid to host the 2023 Games last year – a bid that was highly commended throughout the country, even in Parliament.

But since passing the Pacific Games 2023 Act 2017 in March last year, commencing the Act took forever.

With merely nine weeks left for the current Government and date extensions already sought from the Pacific Games Council, further extensions would have to be genuine.

Team Leader of the National Task Force mandated to work on preparations for the Games, Gabriel Suri told SIBC they are not asking for anymore extensions.

“The question now is what kind of an excuse will we give the Pacific Games Council. We the Task Force cannot provide anymore excuse, we cannot seek any further extension as any further extension has to come from the government itself, they have to provide a good reason.

“Now if the Pacific Games Council is not satisfied with any reason then they will start to question whether Solomon Islands capable of hosting the games in 2023. If they ask such a question and gets no satisfactory response that’s the time they would start to think about serious decisions to take”.

Mr Suri added, with limited time on its side the Government must NOT keep silent but correspond with the Pacific Games Council before it’s too late.

“But still have space I think, the important thing now is for our Government not to just keep silent, they must correspond and communicate with the Pacific Games Council.

“If the Government wants the Task Force to come forward to assist or to work on something else then they have to tell us, they have to call us up. For us to just keep quiet without informing the Pacific Games Council, that is dangerous”.

Repeated phone calls to the Government Caucus regarding this were not answered.

By: Rickson Bau