The national motto of Solomon Islands is to 'Lead is to serve'. This indicated that all leaders whether at the national or provincial government level have to abide with their oath to serve all citizens. That is they have been voted into power as leaders with the expectation to serve everyone. Thus providing basic services and implement new projects thus to enhance the standard of living at all levels. However, this was not the cased in Solomon Islands’ politics; many politicians tend to take things for granted for their own benefits and self interest. So much funding or aid money poured into the country from other countries like Australia and Taiwan purposely for certain projects or development assistance which at times tempted politicians to control or divert it for other purposes according to their own interest.
In April this year, a faithful government minister had revealed the attempts made by some politicians to control the $38 million for this year’s budget that was allocated for cocoa and coconut projects. Solomon Islands’ Agriculture and Livestock Minister David Tome said, he told the politicians that the money belongs to the farmers, not them. Tome stated that he refused to several politicians who tried to convince him to channel the funding through them. The minister said he strongly opposed the suggestion to channel the money through politicians because this was specifically allocated for farmers. He said his ministry had allocated $19 million for cocoa development projects and another $19 million for coconut in their budget this year.
He stated that he opposed the funds going through politicians for fear the funds will not be used for their intended purpose. He said the ministry’s policy on these funding is clear and that is to assist farmers without any politician influence.
A number of funding in the ministries of Tourism, Fisheries, Rural Development, and Forestry are channelled through MPs, some of which ended up in wrong hands.
Also this
year, the current ruling government has tried as much as possible to debate and
passed in parliament many bills that excessively benefit politicians. Members
of Parliament (MPs) have amazingly passed in parliament some of their entitlements
with much irrational increases which caused much upheaval to the general
public. Previously MPs terminal grant is $100,000, now it sky rocked to
$400,000.
The
statement said all the 50 Members of Parliament (MPs) will receive a handsome
payout of $400, 000.00 as terminal grant after completing their four years term
as parliament members. They also increased their oversea travelling allowance
and education grant.
Obviously
such practice and mind-set of politicians are only self-serving and self-interest
considering many outstanding important issues the country has gone through. One
of the pressing issues that they had ignored for quite a long time is the teachers’
demand on re-levelling exercise and backdated payments which eventually led to
the nation-wide teachers’ strike early this year. The issue had taken the government
many years before eventually managed to resolve it. There are also many public
services needed to be improved or upgraded such as hospitals, more infrastructure
development and so on. The government occasionally put a blind eye or lack consideration
on these issues.
However,
when it comes to issues relating to politicians’ entitlements, the government
for sure would act promptly to deal with the matter. This portrayed how some
politicians are so good at serving themselves without considering the general well-being of the public who had voted them into power. This is self-serving at its best.
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