Christmas arrived a few days early for the Bikini community. Last week, Mayor Anderson Jibas and Kili-Bikini-Ejit (KBE) council members and staff delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to KBE residents.
A ceremony was held late last week on Ejit for the distribution of $3,000 cash to each of the approximately 50 homes on Ejit. Distributions were also planned for each household on Kili Island and Majuro, although as of Tuesday, KBE officials said the amount had not been determined.
A KBE official said the cash payments to KBE residents were classified as “disaster assistance” distributions.
On Thursday afternoon, shortly before making the cash distributions, the KBE Council celebrated and blessed a fleet of new vehicles purchased for council members. More than a dozen new vehicles were lined up in front of the Bikini Town Hall with balloons adorning them for the ceremony. All council members received a vehicle for their use, the Journal was told.
The funds used for these various events come from the Bikini Resettlement Trust Fund. The US government in November gave the KBE Council control over the trust fund.
Read more about this in the December 22, 2017 edition of the Marshall Islands Journal.