NTA is scheduled to launch 4G mobile service in 10 days, the government is negotiating to buy a new field trip ship, and new air service options for Marshall Islands residents were among points highlighted by President Hilda Heine in her state of the nation speech at the opening of the Nitijela session Tuesday.
Among points she offered to Nitijela and the nation:
• Cabinet to make modifications to the MISSA Act because its current form is unfair to senior citizens.
• Cabinet has adopted Agenda 2020, which serves to improve the well being of all Marshallese and those who call Marshall Islands home. Better government service will be the new norm, not the exception.
• The government is committed to find new avenues to reduce the nation’s budgetary hardships by the inadequacies of the Compact Trust Fund, which as of December stood at $305 million.
• RMI government to engage the US in dialogue in regards to $20 million tax and trade compensation that is still owed to the Marshall Islands from the first Compact.
• The administration to push forward with a campaign for justice for victims of the US nuclear testing program.
• Government to propose establishing a Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.
• RMI committed to attain 100 percent of power from renewable energy by 2050.
• Successful Ebeye pilot on TB and non-communicable disease screening to be expanded to Majuro and outer islands this fiscal year.
• Public School System to reclassify over 220 teachers to higher salary levels based on academic achievement.
• PSS, College of Marshall Islands and others to host an education summit themed “Charting Our Course: Our Child, Our Hope” on Ebeye January 25-26.
• Ministry of Transportation and Communications to build a domestic terminal at Uliga Dock to cater to outgoing and incoming sea passengers
Read more about this in the January 6, 2016 edition of the Marshall Islands Journal.