AUGUST 13, 2010
Just $36,000
not spent by
Education
The Ministry of Education managed to spend nearly all of its $24 million in Supplemental Education Grant (SEG) funding provided by the US government during the first four years of the grant under the Compact. US Department of Interior figures show that from fiscal year 2005 through 2008, the Ministry did not spend about $36,000, which was returned to the US. Unlike Compact grants that if unspent at the end of the fiscal year are rolled over to a following year, unspent SEG money is lost.
NGO conference
'a fabulous success'
Over 150 people took part in the first annual National Conference of Non-Government Organizations at the International Conference Center (ICC) this week.
“It was fabulously successful,” organizer Bonny Taggart said Wednesday, the last day of the three-day event held by the Marshall Islands Council of Non-Government Organizations (MICNGOs).
General Fund sees many deficit years
RMI government financial reports show the General Fund operated at a deficit four of the past five years. The General Fund includes all local (non-donor) revenues. Audited financial statements for fiscal year 2005 through FY2009 show that the deficit for those four years amounted to $5.2 million. The one-year that the government’s spending did not exceed its General Fund revenue was FY2007, when it ended the year with a $504,938 surplus. The overall deficit (loss) for these five years was $4.7 million.
RMI wins 57 medals
Marshall Islands wrestler Waylon Muller won two gold medals at the Micronesian Games in Palau, one in Grecko Roman and one in Freestyle. This marks the fifth consecutive time he has won double gold medals in this every-four-year regional competition. Marshall Islands Wrestling Federation President Francis Silk said, "Nobody in Micronesia can beat Waylon. He is simply the best."
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Speaker Alik Alik (pictured) returned from an off-island trip earlier this week to be confronted by many people asking him if there will be a vote of no confidence this session of Nitijela. The Vice Speaker told the Journal he believes the answer to this question is a simple “no.” “I don’t think there will be a vote of no confidence,” Alik told the Journal. “This is not the right time.” Nitijela opens with on Monday with its usual ceremonial session, with Tuesday being the first business day of the final session of 2010. “We have a full week of work for Nitijela” next week, Speaker Alvin Jacklick told the Journal. And with just 15 months until the next national election, the Vice Speaker said he believes it is “time to move on” and focus on the work of the nation, a position he shares with the Speaker. Alik added that he is hopeful the Nitijela will be able to finish its final year in office without a further vote undermining the work of the parliament. Alik said upon his return home this week, a lot of people asked him what’s going on relative to a possible no confidence vote following publication of Speaker Alvin Jacklick’s comments in last week’s edition indicating the possibility of such a vote. “People are wondering what is going on,” the Vice Speaker said. But, he added, “to me, I don’t think there will be a vote of no confidence.”
Feisty Public Account hearings

Marshalls
comes in fourth
The Marshall Islands came in fourth in total medals at the 2010 Micronesian Games that ended Tuesday.
With 57 medals earned, the RMI almost tripled its medal haul compared to the 2006 Micronesian Games in Saipan.
Palau was number one, with 129 medals, the Northern Marianas second with 92 and Guam third with 66.
The medal breakdown for the RMI: Swimming 30, weighlifting 12, athletics 6, wrestling 6, Micronesian All-Around 1, Women’s Softball 1, Men’s
Basketball 1.
Ujae Senator Frederick “Kano” Muller is finishing three weeks of hearings with the Public Accounts Committee in the lead up to the Nitijela session that starts Monday. The hearings have had feisty moments — on Monday, Chairman Muller and Jaluit Senator Rien Morris engaged in a heated argument, resulting in Muller halting the hearing briefly.
Muller took over the chairmanship of this committee recently from Arno Senator Gerald Zackios, who moved to become chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Virtually every ministry and agency of government has been called in to report on their use of funds and program activities, offering listeners of these nationally broadcast hearings insight into the workings of everything from the Marshalls Energy Company and the Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority to Education and Health programs. Muller and other committee members continually emphasized the need for improved performance in government work.
Public Works Minister Maynard Alfred, Finance Minister Jack Ading and Japan Charge Yuji Okada (right) and Waste Company Manager Roger Cooper (below).
MAWC rolls out the bins
Last week, the Japan Embassy handed over 1,226 trash bins funded through its Grassroots Grants program at a cost of $97,000. The bins were provided to Majuro Atoll Waste Company in response to a grant request. The bins are expectecd to dramatically improve Majuro's look. This week, MAWC officials began assigning the bins to each household in the Rita area of Majuro. The bins are made of heavy-duty plastic, with wheels and a cover to reduce flies.
Lifters, swimmers head off to Singapore
Youth Games
Marshall Islands men’s and women’s weightlifters barely have time to bask in their haul of medals from the Micronesian Games. That’s because they depart from Palau this week to fly directly to the Youth Olympic Games that will be held in Singapore from August 14-26. It is the first Youth Olympic Games, and two of the four weightlifters competing in Palau together with two swimmers will represent the RMI at the games that are bringing thousands of athletes to Singapore. Amon Shiro, who won bronze in Palau, will represent the RMI in the men’s 56KG (123 pound division), and Lomina Tibon will represent the RMI in the women’s 53KG (116 pound division). Marshallese swimmers Giordan Harris, who won two silver medals in Palau in men’s relay races, will compete in the 50-meter freestyle race in Singapore, while Hagar Kabua will compete in the women’s 50-meter freestyle.

Journal 8/16/1985

Journal 8/14/1971
P7 On Monday of this week Majuro businessman Robert Reimers was seen shovel in hand mixing cement in a soon-to-be boat yard located to the side of his ne supermarket. It was strange to see a man of Robert’s position, let alone age, playing with cement, but that is what he was doing. “You know,” said Robert, “we are building this boat yard and we are going to make boats again in the Marshall Islands.”
Surprisingly, there was a touch of excitement in his voice — as though there was something alive inside him. It wasn’t an interview and no 		P1 Urban renewal is coming to the downtown area of Majuro, with the government announcing its plan to remove the dilapidated buildings known as the “Labor Camp” from the central business district in Uliga. The wood and corrugated metal roof barrack-style buildings
one was sneaking around looking for news. It wasn’t even anything with Robert being a major advertiser in this paper, because Robert isn’t like that. When Robert Reimers started business during Navy time, it was as a boat builder. Then, somewhere along the line, he came to Majuro with his boat building tools to set up shop in a section of the district center known as the boat pool. But the boat business never really got underway. For years he was sidetracked into operating a retail business with a small shipping operation to the outer islands. Then he came across Powell Mikkelsen and things began to happen in a big way, but all in the direction of retailing with little time or room for working on boats.
“But I never cared much for the store business,” said Robert. “I want to work with my hands and give other people work to do…There are so many people here in the Marshalls who know how to build boats, but there is no place to work.” Robert explained how the present venture got underway. “I heard that the Community Development office here had money for a contract to build boats and they were going to give the contract to the Palau boat yard. So I went to their office and talked to Rhine Brain and told him that I would want to the contract because we could do as good a job as the Palau boat yard right here in Majuro. I said that we Marshallese should be ashamed to have to send to Palau to have our boats built. We are the people of the sea. We are the ones who from a long time ago knew how to build boats.”
With that Robert submitted a bid and was given the contract. To start there will be 20 copra boats for the outer islands with six HP diesel inboard engines. And so the Marshalls has a new beginning in an old industry. It isn’t much as it is now but the hope lives that it will prosper. There are too many fishermen and craftsmen behind desks here as it is.
have been a fixture in downtown since they were put up in the early 1960s to house the workers who constructed government buildings and other facilities in Majuro. Today, about 24 families totaling about 150 people, live on this crowded 100-yard strip of land bordering the lagoon.
P3 In this United Nations Year of the Child, the Marshall Islands are confronted with a startling and alarming face: severe malnutrition has hit the islands with as many as 36 percent (one-in-three) of the children in some areas suffering for lack of adequate nutrition. This is the report of a recently released government study that has made an opening stab at identifying the problem by looking at Majuro, Ebeye and three outer islands. That this study may have only scratched the surface of a deeper nutrition crisis in the Marshalls was suggested by a slide presentation by Majuro doctors at a workshop this week on “Health, Tradition and Religion in the Marshall Islands.” The slides showed many malnourished children in all parts of the Marshalls.

Journal 8/13/1993
P1 More than 20,000 people have been invited and are expected at the capitol opening celebration Thursday and Friday afternoon and evening in Majuro. Special AMI flights from Fiji, Kwajalein and the outer islands, and field trip ships have been disgorging thousands of Marshallese and friends of the Marshalls into the capital city as excitement grows for the big weekend celebration.
P17 Headline: “Kramer boasts 5-hour erection” — “Nothing to it” is the way Jerry Kramer described the five short hours it took to put up walls and roof of a new home in Rairok Tuesday. “An all-Marshallese crew erected Larry Edwards’ new house across from the old Sun Hotel in just five hours using the waffle-crete system,” he said.