Prime Minister Hon. James Marape and Prime Minister of Solomon Islands Hon. Jeremiah Manele have held bilateral talks this morning (Wednesday, 28 August 2024) on the margins of the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ meeting in Tonga.

At the meeting, Prime Minister Marape highlighted the “brotherly ties” Papua New Guinea continues to share with Solomon Islands.

The leaders discussed issues affecting their people and looked at ways to work together to protect the security of the maritime border between their countries.

Some issues highlighted were specialist health care for heart and cancer patients, affordable electricity, education, the Police Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) and maritime border security.

Prime Minister Marape informed Prime Minister Manele that Papua New Guinea would soon have fully-equipped heart and cancer treatment facilities in Port Moresby.

He added that given the high cost of travelling overseas for treatment or surgery, the facilities in Port Moresby will help to reduce costs for Papua New Guineans, and offered the use of the facilities to Solomon Islanders to help cut down costs for them travelling further away for specialist treatment.

Prime Minister Marape also noted the expensive costs of electricity in Solomon Islands, also offering affordable electricity once hydro power becomes available in PNG.

He highlighted PNG’s many investments in Solomon Islands, which he said are more than PNG’s investments in other Pacific Island countries.

He further informed the Prime Minister of Solomon Islands that PNG would honour the 50 scholarships committed for Solomon Islands students to study at the University of Papua New Guinea, and called on officials from both countries to work together to finalise the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to make way for this.

Prime Minister Marape also noted that traditional border crossing at the maritime border of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands is allegedly being used by non-traditional border crossers to smuggle illegal drugs and guns between the countries.

He, therefore, suggested working on a common identification system for legitimate traditional border crossing people to help crack down on illegal border crossing.

Prime Minister Marape and Prime Minister Manele also discussed RAMSI under which Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary (RPNGC) deploys personnel to assist Solomon Islands, offering police training to SI police at PNG’s Bomana Centre of Excellence in Port Moresby.