The Government has started planning for the country’s big celebration of the 60th Constitution Day next year, including the budget. The celebration is expected to be slightly longer than this year’s event.

Emile Kairua, the Secretary of Ministry of Cultural Development, also said that they are waiting for the theme to be finalised by Prime Minister Mark Brown and the Minister of Culture, George “Maggie” Angene, before they take it to the communities as part of the planning process.

“I can’t divulge what that is going to look like, we’ve got the plan, we already have the budget for it, we have the programme except it may be a little bit longer than what we anticipated,” Kairua said.

He said the Prime Minister and the Minister of Culture would “have a little bit of a hand in deciding the theme”.

“I’m happy for that to happen. It just means that there is buy in for the theme right from the top to the village level.”

The dates have been set and confirmed from July 24th to August 4th. With the addition of more exciting programmes, such as a concert, the 60^th Constitution Day promises to be a major celebration.

“It’s an 11-day programme, slightly longer than we had this year. There are already components confirmed for that, there are things that’s going to happen in there, some exciting things like concerts, some international regional stars are coming,” Kairua said.

“We’ve got people arriving next week to confirm a concert for next year, we’re talking to someone about a reggae band still to be named.

“It’s just the theme that needs to be done and then we’re going out to the communities to start planning.

“There will be some other events that is expected and scheduled to take place around the same time which is expected to bring more of the Cook Islands diaspora from overseas for those events as well as participate in next year’s Te Maeva Nui and Constitution Day such as the Cook Islands Christian Church (CICC) regional conference.”

It is believed that the CICC’s conference was scheduled to be held in Australia but they’re bringing it home in July to coincide with the Constitution Day.