Port Vila, Vanuatu - July 21^st, 2025 – Prime Minister Jotham Napat is leading a high-level delegation to France this week for a crucial high level dialogue with French President Emmanuel Macron. The meeting aims to strengthen bilateral relations, explore new opportunities for cooperation, and discuss key issues of mutual interest.

The Prime Minister left the country on Sunday 20^th of July and in his absence, the Minister of Agriculture Ian Wilson, is the Acting Prime Minister.

Deputy Prime Minister Johnny Koanapo Rasou Nies who left earlier on Friday will also join Prime Minister Napat for the high-level dialogue with President Macron.

Notably, Deputy Prime Minister Nies- in his capacity as the Minister for Finance and Economic Management, has other engagements, but has a key stop in Toulouse, France to meet with Airbus authorities.

In addition to the meeting with President Macron, the Vanuatu delegation is scheduled to meet with heads of prominent financial institutions, including Bred Bank and the Agence Française de Développement (AFD). These meetings will focus on strengthening relationships, identify investment opportunities, and discuss potential collaborations.

The visit underscores the importance of the relationship between Vanuatu and France.

PORT VILA, 19^th June 2025 – Prime Minister Jotham Napat will participate in his first ever international engagement next week as he prepares to attend the Melanesian Spearhead Group Leaders 23^rd Summit in Fiji on Monday.

The Leaders’ Summit is usually preceded by the Senior Officials Meeting and the Foreign Ministers Meeting – the former commencing on Wednesday this week and continuing on Thursday. The Foreign Ministers meeting takes place on Friday 20^th June 2025.

Prime Minister Napat leaves on Friday to participate in various activities over the weekend, organized by the hosts – Fiji – culminating in the Leaders’ Summit proper on Monday.

On Tuesday he is expected to hold bilateral discussions with some of the MSG member countries before returning on Wednesday 25^th June 2025.

As outgoing Chairman of the MSG, Prime Minister Napat is also expected to formally handover the Chairmanship of the MSG to Fiji before the Leaders’ Summit. The handover is expected to be done in the formal traditional Melanesian fashion.

In his absence, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Johnny Koanapo Rasou, will be Acting Prime Minister.

PORT VILA, 17^th June 2025 – The Vanuatu Government fully understands the frustrations people have over the conditions of the roads in the Capital but stresses that it is highly imperative that relevant authorities follow due processes to ensure that the road conditions are fixed to last.

The experience is that most sealing works have not been carried out correctly in the past, costing the country lots of money to continuously patch, only for those patching work to come off during severe weather conditions. The Government, through the Ministry of Infrastructure cannot continue the same approach.

However, as seen from this map (attached), the roads marked (light green) within the CBD are under tender, while the ones marked yellow are being prepared for tendering in July.

The Government is also urging everyone to bear with PWD as they have been undergoing vital training on how to properly carry out sealing works. Under current planning schedule, PWD will be fixing the roads outside of the CBD areas.

The Government also wishes to reiterate that fixing the roads within the town areas cannot be done without first fixing the drainage and key components of a modern road network. Such a task requires proper planning and design.

Additionally, in collaboration with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the rebuilding of Port Vila is currently being discussed through a consultative process – with the public being invited to provide their feedbacks and suggestions on how to improve the town overall look and experience.

Through this participatory approach, the Government hopes to rebuild Port Vila City back better and stronger.

Meanwhile, the Government has ordered more equipment and machinery to help them address the road conditions in and around Port Vila. This is what resilience building is all about.

PORT VILA, 11^th June 2025 – The Opposition leader was clearly trying to pull wool over the eyes of the public in his latest outbursts against the Government’s performance under the 100-days plan.

The Office of the Prime Minister wishes to clarify that the 66% achievement are the overall indicators of how the Government has performed with regards to the 76 policy initiatives covering the entire government and private sector, which it set out to accomplish since February 11.

The figure in and of itself is a remarkable achievement given the limited time it took to achieve the target.

Prime Minister Jotham Napat says the best that the leader could have done was give credit where it was due. In response to his rhetoric that businesses affected after the earthquake were not yet up and running, the Prime Minister said it seemed the Opposition leader had easily forgotten that it was the Government who came forward with funding assistance that cleared the CBD area within weeks – a task meant to be left to the business and property owners to undertake.

“We supported the private sector to demolish the buildings because most of them could not do it.

“The town is still being cleared but I can assure everyone that once rebuilt Port Vila will be totally transformed for the better. Being resilient, as they have always been, most businesses are pretty much back up and operating in and around Port Vila already so it is quite misleading for him to state that the Government has done nothing,” says the Prime Minister.

Currently, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, together with relevant authorities and agencies are carrying out consultations with members of the pubic and stakeholders on how they would like the new Port Vila to look and feel like going forward.

“This is a highly significant participatory approach to town planning.

“Port Vila City is a town built during the colonial era by the merchants and traders. This is now our opportunity to rebuild our beloved city in a way that reflects our values and aspirations for the future.

“There’s never been a better time. Rather than criticise what the Government has been doing, how about we all work together to rebuild our city,” says the Prime Minister.

With regards to the road conditions, the Government is urging everyone to bear with PWD as they undergo vital training on how to properly do sealing works. Under current planning schedule, PWD will be carrying out sealing works outside of the CBD areas.

In addition, it should be cleared that fixing the roads cannot be done without first fixing the drainage. It requires proper design and planning. That is being done, and with funding support from our partners, we will improve the road conditions within the CBD.

For the other road works around the CBD, our experience is that most sealing works in the past have not been carried out correctly, costing the country lots of money to continuously repeat the same thing. We cannot continue the same approach.

The road maintenance section of the PWD need to be able to master the craft so that more public resources are not wasted.

The Government has also ordered more equipment and machinery which are on their way. Once PWD have them, they will close up all the potholes with better results. This is what resilience building is all about.

On the question of diplomatic passports, the Opposition leader attempted to smear the Government – an obvious political tactic that he seems good at. The public should be made aware that under his tutelage as Minister for Internal Affairs, he signed off on an order that paved the way for practices that have come under scrutiny with people like consulates and Trade Commissioners being granted diplomatic passports, contrary to the Vienna Convention.