BY LORETTA B MANELE
The lack of energy in rural areas was one of the reasons for the application of the solar power system project says, Trevor Manemahaga, Minister of Planning.
He highlighted this after expressing gratitude to Chinese Ambassador to Solomon Islands, Cai Weiming and officials from the Chinese embassy for the 2-year solar power system project.
From this project, some of the remaining constituencies from the first 25 out of 50 constituencies to receive the project, received their projects during a handover ceremony on Friday, November 14, 2025 at the Chinese embassy.
In his remarks at the ceremony, Manemahaga said there were two things that they were trying to address by applying for this project.
He explained that the first was to reduce our carbon footprint and to advance the endeavour taken by the Ministry to address climate change issues.
Second to this was Ministry of Environment having seen the importance of rural electrification as part of rural economic advancement and part of economic transformation.
“As I’ve always argued to all of you in my departments when I was with the Ministry, I always believe one of the issues facing rural areas is lack of energy.
“Lack of energy. And if you really want to address value chain productivity, we have to address energy. We have to have energy in the rural areas,” he said.
Manemahaga said energy is one of the areas that is lacking in our country, especially in the rural areas and because of this they started to embrace the idea that we have to have energy across the country.
“And this perhaps 6-kilowatt system which can give you light, which can power two deep freezers. So, for fishermen or fisherwomen in the rural areas, it’s really good if you have a catch. You can, you know, it supports the whole value chain,” he said.
Manemahaga reiterated that the two important areas they want to address is to reduce our carbon footprint by using green energy and solar energy and secondly, economic transformation.
“….transformation by reaching out to rural areas by giving energy to rural areas so that they can start just, you know, enjoy life just like everybody in the urban areas,” he added.
The Minister of Planning said this is the main idea and it is also part of GNUT’s current policy for rural retrofitting and economic transformation.
“This is basically why we are here today,” he noted.
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