Renovation of historic Luganville town hall almost complete

More than 37 million vatu has been spent to reconstruct Santo’s historic Luganville Municipal Council Building, which was devasted by Cyclone Harold in 2020.

Participating in work marking the completion of the project, Luganville Municipal Council Mayor, Peter Patty, says he wanted the reconstructed building to have “a new look”.

Mayor Patty and the President of Sanma Provincial Government Council, Langi Touvé, put screws on some of the building’s iron roof sheets to mark the completion of the work this week.

Mr Touvé said it was an honour to work on the building as it will become the main centre in Luganville Town for future discussions on development.

“This building will service the people of Luganville and surrounding areas,” Mr Touvé said.

He said the Luganville Municipal Council Building, which was built in the French and British colonial era, was Vanuatu’s very first council town hall building.

Following the devastation of the building by Cyclone Harold, the national Government pledged to make the building more resilient to severe weather events.

In June 2020, the Deputy Prime Minister and Internal Affairs Minister, Ismael Kalsakau, handed VT37 million to the Luganville mayor for the rebuild.

Minister Kalsakau says the money was taken from the budget of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and is part of the Government’s commitment to reconstruct key institutions following the cyclone.

The Minister says he is happy that the Government could respond to the mayor’s call for support for the renovation, and asked Mr Patty to ensure the money is used effectively.

Mr Patty has assured the Government that the building will be fully restored, but a scheduled completion date of the end of 2020 was not met.

The council says the building should now be in use by the end of July.