16 May 2014

New Vanuatu government will review honorary consul appointments

7:58 pm on 16 May 2014

The new Vanuatu Prime Minister Joe Natuman says his government will review the system for appointing honorary consuls.

Mr Natuman's comment comes after parliament last week amended laws to allow foreigners to become Vanuatu honorary consuls as long as they maintain all the costs of the mission and contribute to development programmes for the country.

"I don't want people to abuse our diplomatic passports for some reasons which could be dangerous for us. For example, if some of these diplomatic passports, people we have not checked properly and they get into the wrong hands, and people are caught using diplomatic passports for some criminal activities, then Vanuatu's name will be tarnished internationally."

Joe Natuman also says at this stage, Vanuatu should not open any more new diplomatic missions around the world because it's too costly.