9 Nov 2006

Solomons swears in new high commissioner to Australia

9:41 am on 9 November 2006

Solomon Islands new High Commissioner to Australia, Victor Ngele, was sworn in at Government House yesterday by Governor General Sir Nathaniel Waena.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Jerry Manele says Mr Ngele will take up his Canberra posting in two weeks after completing all formalities and briefings with various offices whom he'll work alongside while in Canberra.

Mr Ngele says he is anxious to be in Canberra to help in the normalisation process after what the two countries have been through in recent weeks.

He says he delayed his Commissioning for this week following media reports implicating him in an audit report as receiving two-hundred-fifty thousand US dollars in humanitarian assistance for his electorate in 2000 while he was a member of Parliament.

Mr Ngele says he has furnished the Auditor General's office with a report on how he expended the humanitarian funding assistance paid to various members of Parliament.