PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT

Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West Center
With Support From Center for Pacific Islands Studies/University of Hawai‘i

By Transform Aqorau

HONIARA, Solomon Islands (Feb. 16) - I know that a lot of people have written to the Solomon Star in the past few weeks, and will continue to do so over the next few months expressing views about the country and especially about the forthcoming elections.

It is encouraging to see that people are openly viewing various opinions about the future of Solomon Islands. Obviously, we all share common concerns about the future of Solomon Islands political, economic and social configuration. No doubt the quality of those elected into the next Parliament is critical and naturally the general propensity of writers have been to admonish voters to look for good, honest people.

Sadly, the level of political development in Solomon Islands has not reached a stage where elections are dominated by discussions about issues rather than the personality of those contesting the elections. One day in the future, with better political awareness and understanding of the role of Parliamentarians and the general electorate in governance, political campaigns will be issues rather than personality based.

The next Parliament and Government is critical. The previous Parliament and Government was important, but perhaps not as significant as the incoming one in terms of addressing key problems facing Solomon Islands.

The Kemakeza Government enabled an environment in which government could govern again after the puppetry of former militants. The two and a half year time frame which the Kemakeza government had since the arrival of RAMSI [Regional Assistance Mission Solomon Islands] was only long enough in my view for it to address governance structures and law and order issues. If it had attempted to redress the long-term underlying social and economic problems that have beset Solomon Islands in the past 27 years, it is not fully apparent to some of us. The incoming government however will have its hands full.

The social, political and economic causes that resulted in the ethnic tension and civil war have not been addressed.

There should not be any pretext that all is well now that law and order is back, justice is being meted out, and the gold ridge and oil palm plantation are being revitalised. There are serious undercurrents simmering and if not addressed could easily reignite the tension. The fire that burnt down the new oil palm plantation headquarters, the calls for greater resource owner participation in the gold ridge mine, reversion of land in Lunga and Tenaru are issues that cannot be ignored. The proliferation of squatters in Honiara town need to be addressed. One cannot help but notice the exponential growth of unemployed people loitering in Honiara since the beginning of the year. Something must be done about rural development. The development of Malaita in particular is especially important in the equation of the long-term solution to some of the problems facing Solomon Islands. Naturally because of its larger population and underdevelopment, the proportion of Malaitans migrating to Honiara is greater than other islands. This is in no way meant to be a negative indictment. It is simply stating the fact. What it means for the incoming government is that the Auluta oil palm plantation, Bina Harbour project and an international runway for Malaita must be pursued with vigour. It also means that land and resource owners from Malaita must be amenable to the idea that if they are to develop, they must allow their resources to be developed. This is not only true for Malaita, it is true for everyone else! It means that approaches to economic development must be different.

The population continues to grow at an alarming rate.

This has serious implications for the social sectors of the community. The effects of the rapid population growth is quite visible in the areas of public health and education. Honiara is only a small representation of the public health problems arising from the population explosion. There is generally poor sanitation, and drainage with the general environment (dusty and dirty) not conducive to healthy living. HIV/Aids is also another threat that will have to be addressed with greater political vigour than has been hitherto the case. In education, the annual increase in the number of school children is obvious. There is overcrowding in schools which generally are under resourced. Such an environment is not conducive for lerning. There is also increasing poverty especially in Honiara. Poverty fuels other social problems such as petty stealing, ravaging in the garbage dumps and prostitution. At the risk of boring readers, I have only chosen a snapshot of policy challenges facing Solomon Islands. The key challenge of course is choosing a path that will avoid the ethnic tension.

Some possible policy responses for the incoming government could be:

• Establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the ethnic tension. It is pretentious to believe that it cannot happen again. It is also dangerous to simply forget about it. The nation needs to know who planned and masterminded the ethnic tension. Those who tragically lost their lives during the tension should not be nameless victims of the violence of a few who held the entire nation to ransom.
• Establish as a matter of urgency a Commission of Inquiry into Land Matters. The outgoing Minister for Lands announced the establishment of such an Inquiry but more needs to be done than simply pronouncing its creation. Addressing the land tenure problem in Solomon Islands has got to be amongst the top priority for the new government. Already, there is a class of Solomon Islanders who are essentially landless. I say so however with some qualification but there are people for whom returning to their ancestral land is not an option. This must be recognised. The proliferation of squatters in and around Honiara attest to this. Sadly, many of these settlements are not serviced by proper public utilities (roads, water, electricity, telecommunications) creating a distinct class of citizens in Honiara deprived of the most basic services.
• Impose restrictions on the number of children to contain the exponential population growth. I know this might not be palatable to some people. However, government could aim as a matter of policy to reduce the population growth rate by half over a given period of time say twenty years.
• Ensure that no new development projects take place in Honiara and that all development projects/investments are diverted to the provinces. In particular two additional international standard runways should be built in the Western Province and Malaita. The ethnic tension showed the absurdity of centralising government functions. With international standard facilities in the provinces, Honiara may be divested of its primacy as the "bright lights" of Solomon Islands.
• Ensure education standards are raised to a level whereby Solomon Islanders can export skills rather than cheap raw materials that damage the environment. The quantity (number of schools etc.) of education has expanded but its quality has suffered. Education should be viewed as a three legged partnership between parents, students and teachers whereby students are taught to be creative, critical and thought provoking and not to just regurgitate what the teachers/lecturers tell them. Too often students (including University students) lack creative, critical thinking abilities.
• Ensure Solomon Islands has a clean, healthy environment. In addition to the beautification of Honiara, government should adopt a "greening of Solomon Islands" policy whereby every household, suburb, village and town are encouraged to plant trees not just for beautification but to help the environment.
• Ensure the public service is free of political influence. The public service plays an important role in the fabric of Solomon Islands society. One of the first thing the new government could do is change the nomenclature "Permanent Secretary" because there is nothing "permanent" about the position. One of the problems facing the public service is the lack of capacity in policy implementation especially through legislating to implement government policy. This is evident by the extremely small number of legislations that Parliament has enacted in the past four years. This problem unfortunately will be compounded over the next few years because of the capacity gaps that now exist in the service.

The policy responses are unlimited. Time and space however does not allow us to discuss the full array of options.

Finally, to the prospective candidates, Parliament is basically a law-making institution. The role of Parliamentarians therefore is to pass laws to improve the social and economic welfare of Solomon Islanders. Unfortunately, it is not an institution that has churned out well grounded Solomon Islanders. Many have become poorer from it. Few acquire marketable skills for post-Parliamentary life. Yet every four years it attracts its many wishful hopers whom I am sure are already losing a few pennies in the hope of winning. The next four years is critical.