North-West Guadalcanal MP hands over Rural Farmer’s market
The North-West Guadalcanal Rural Farmer’s Market.
More than 1000 women from North-West Guadalcanal and the Honiara public will benefit from the West Guadalcanal Rural Farmer’s market when it officially opens soon.
A formal ceremony was conducted last week where the MP for North-West Guadalcanal and the initiator of the market, Bodo Dettke, handed over the facility to the North-West Guadalcanal Rural Farmer’s Association.
Acknowledging Mr Dettke’s initiative, Guadalcanal Premier Anthony Veke said the new market will solve the North-West Guadalcanal farmers and the Guadalcanal leaders’ frustration to secure spots at the Honiara Central Market.
“We received reports that a lot of time our women have been pushed into the car park at the Central market. Sometimes they don’t have any table to put their products on, the products they bring from the village.
“They use the pathway people walk on to put the things they brought to find money for their families. That is a heartache for leaders to see happening.”
Mr Dettke welcomed the more than one thousand women members of the North-West Guadalcanal Rural Farmer’s Association who will use the facility.
“I’m proud to announce from your office, there is more than one thousand woman who will be handed i.d cards to use this market.
North-West Guadalcanal MP Bodo Dettke raises his hands as he walked to meet the crowd after the handing over ceremony.
“One thousand two hundred i.d cards for women only to use the facility here. Whether you vote for me or not, that is beside the point. No politics, this is for the women.”
Meanwhile, the opening ceremony was disturbed by the Honiara City Lord Mayor Andrew Mua, who attempted to arrest the North-West Guadalcanal MP.
Mr Dettke during the ceremony explained, he has a court case with the Mayor pending at the High Court regarding the piece of land where the market is.
But he said Mua’s attempt to stop the ceremony and arrest him defied the orders of the High Court.
“The Mayor sent his officers here to arrest me. That is why i must give the documents from the court for them to read, whereby the Court says it is prohibited for them to come to this place, which they have no knowledge about.
“The High Court says if they come in here they are trespassing, but still they did not recognize the court order. They did not respect the High Court and they came into my property and still talked to me.
“I am very surprised, the Lord Mayor Andrew Mua still forced his enforcement officers to breech the Court order.”