A LARGE of number of people who travelled to North Vella, Western Province, last weekend to register for 2024 National General Election are reportedly stranded.
This came after more than 100 people failed to board MV Fair Glory on its return journey from Choiseul on Tuesday evening, reports reaching Solomon Star said.
“This is because they failed to complete their registration before the boat arrivet at Boro,” a villager said.
On Sunday MV Fair Glory departed Honiara filled with passengers, most of whom were destined to their home constituencies to get registered under the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) exercise for the 2024 NGE.
The boat arrived in Gizo on Monday after 2pm.
An hour later, it departed for North Vella and dropped off passengers at Boro for the BVR registration.
From Boro, MV Fair Glory continued on to as far as Taro in Choiseul Province.
On Tuesday morning, the vessel returned from Choiseul with a good number of passengers and called in at Boro to pick up all those it dropped there for registration.
However, not all them completed their registration and therefore were unable to make it back on the trip.
“MV Fair Glory arrived from Choiseul to pick up all the people who have completed their registration, around 100 people were unable to complete their registration.
“They asked the captain to wait at Boro to allow the remaining group to complete their registration.
“But the captain declined the request, saying he did not receive any instructions from the Fair West Management to wait,” the villager said. The MV Fair Glory is owned by Fair West Shipping Company.
The captain tried to get in touch with the ship’s management but due to poor network coverage, he was unable to get through to them.
MV Fair Glory then departed Boro on Tuesday evening for Gizo where it spent the night there.
It then departed Gizo on Wednesday morning for Vonunu and picked up those who have completed their registration there before heading off to Noro and thereon to Honiara.
MV Fair Glory arrived in Honiara around Thursday lunch time.
The villager said the absence of a communication tower in North Vella should also be blamed for the problem.
“If there is mobile access, the captain would communicate with his bosses to make arrangements to wait for the passengers to complete their registration.”
He said MV Fair Glory was on charter to drop off voter registrants at Boro and most of them were waiting to be picked up on its return.
However, they have been victimised due to the slow conduct of the registration at the Voter Registration Centres.
If it was not for the generosity of relatives, the situation would have greatly impacted on the registrants in terms of money and food because they did not expect the registration to be slow.
One person who missed the chartered MV Fair Glory’s trip was forced to travel to Gizo to catch a flight back to Honiara.
By MOFFAT MAMU
