By Alfred Sasako

DECEMBER is often regarded in the Christian calendar as the month which ushers in the festive season and spirit.

While the festive spirit is no doubt there, the beginning of the month is being overshadowed by accidents, some with reported fatalities.

There have been ugly road accidents since December 1, when a truck allegedly carrying timber overturned on Snake Hill in West Guadalcanal. There are conflicting reports about the number of deaths. The driver was allegedly under the influence of liquor.

Some say that as many as twenty people lost their lives in the accident. Others say there were 10 deaths. Still others say there were three deaths.

On the same day, a family waiting to catch a bus from Rove escaped by the skin of their teeth when a three-ton truck ploughed into a brick wall just outside the Outback building opposite the Police Headquarters.

A young driver was reportedly trapped inside the truck for some time before he was freed. The accident caused delays of west-bound traffic for at least an hour. Again, the driver was allegedly under the influence of alcohol.

A few days earlier a man was killed when he was hit by a truck in Honiara on Thursday last week. Police were said to be still hunting down the vehicle and its driver.

On Malaita, a logging dump truck plunged into the Dala South River when it was crossing the wooden bridge. Luckily, there were no reported fatalities.

One can only hope that the English idiom still holds true: A bad beginning makes a good ending.

Perhaps with less alcohol consumption during the festive season, we can hope for a good ending this Christmas/New Year festive season.

BY LYNTON AARON FILIA

THE Education Bill for Solomon Islands is in its final stage, it is reported.

Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development is working on finalising the Education Bill which aims at transforming education system in Solomon Islands.

Overall, the new legislation relates to education – basically ECE, Primary and Secondary sector, tertiary and vocational education.

The Strategic Support Division through the National Education Board Secretariat took the lead in facilitating the process with consultation already done with relevant stakeholders and Provincial Executive in nine provinces, it said.

The education ministry said the draft has been forwarded to the National Education Board for scrutiny.

It said the Bill will assist them in their endeavours as well as defining relationships between MEHRD and its key partners in provincial executive, churches and NGOs.

Meanwhile, the Bill aims to clarify responsibility and relationships of all those who share responsibility for early childhood, primary and secondary education.

It covers Early Childhood Education (3-4 years old), Primary Education (pre-primary for five years), Primary Education (Years one to six) and Secondary Education (currently years seven to 12).

Following the Bill it confers powers on the Permanent Secretary to facilitate administration of the law and provides a review mechanism for certain decisions of the Permanent Secretary.

The Bill also clarifies that the managing authorities (Education Authorities) of Government, provincial and non-government schools and early childhood education centres are responsible for employment and management of staff.

Furthermore, sets out responsibilities for the operation of schools and centres, including the submission of budgets.

Besides, the bill also stipulated needs for compulsory education in specific areas deemed by MEHRD particularly to ensure access early childhood education, primary and secondary education.

BY MAVIS NISHIMURA PODOKOLO

ALARMING rate of water shortage across the country has forced authorities to produce a national water resources and sanitation policy to address this matter.

Speaking at the launch of the policy last week, Minister of Mines and Energy Mr Bradley Tovosia said the increasing plea for clean and safe water is evident across the country hence responsible authorities have liaised in compiling the policy to deal with the issue.

Tovosia said the government also recognises sustainable and reliable water supply and appropriate sanitation systems as the foundation to providing enabling environment to stimulate economic growth in the rural areas.

He said in response to this anxiety the government and its partners have created a policy with some important key objectives to handle the matter.

The set objectives include providing leadership in this essential sector and developing opportunities to health and wellbeing of Solomon Islanders.

Also safeguarding water sources and its receiving environment, answerable to widespread rural and urban settlers who have the need to access safe, adequacy and reliability water and sanitation services, identifying areas and issues which require government interventions, providing plans on how to adapt to global change including climate change, providing monitoring policy and fulfilling the countries intentional and regional duties in the sector.

United Nation Country Manager Azusa Kubota congratulated the government for the launch of Water and Sanitation (WATSAN) policy.

Kubota said this is an inclusive approach to the water and sanitation issue in both urban and rural settings across Solomon Islands.

She said this is because it has goes beyond the norm by covering water resource management issues at taking a whole of the government and multi-partnership approach.

“It is perhaps one of the most progressive policies — probably the first of its kind in the region,” said Kubota.

The launching event of the policy was held last week at the country’s capital, Honiara.

BY LORETTA BRIGIDIA MANELE

“WE only make recommendations and Cabinet makes the decision.”

This was expressed by Supervising Deputy Director of Ministry of Finance and Treasury’s Budget Unit, Marcellina L. Iro to participants of the two day “Bringing the Budget Closer to Home” training that was held last week.

Moreover, speaking on ministry submissions, she said for new initiative programs, ministries are required to submit bids for additional funding.

Mrs Iro adds that whilst doing this, they also expect that they provide supporting documents and submissions with proper costs.

She said they also have budget templates where ministries are asked to insert their planned activities for the given year based on their annual work plan, associated costs, and key outputs of the activities they want to carry out.

After this is received, Iro says they carry out assessment on these submissions before they provide feedback which includes information like the total number of bids, why some bids were recommended and why other bids were not recommended.

She mentioned that the assessment criteria they use relates to government policies and priorities.

This includes things like whether a ministry which has submitted a bid for a project is the rightful ministry to implement that project or whether there is money or funds to cater for submissions made for new projects or continuing projects.

She emphasized that the Budget Unit only makes recommendations on these submissions while Cabinet has the final say.

“Every submission given we will make recommendations for before submitting it to the cabinet which makes the decision”, said Iro.

She stressed that there are also challenges they come across with one of them being ministries seeking approval from Cabinet before getting recommendations from them.

Iro furthers that this is one challenge where they are trying to address by communicating with ministries to make sure that any submissions or requests they have is brought to Finance first so they can see if there is funding for it before we can make recommendations to Cabinet.

BY SAMIE WAIKORI

AUKI

THE Human Resource Manager’s Office within the Malaita provincial administration is working towards reviewing its staff instructions.

This is one of the activities under the roadmap drawn by the HR office for the province as part of the strategy to reform the provincial administration.

Human Resource Manager for Malaita province, Mr Richard Misi said just recently they completed a management workshop gearing towards review of the MPSI.

He said the intention behind the review was so that it fits into the current face set of this age.

Misi said there was a staff instruction document in place which was drawn out of the general order of the public service and there are weaknesses identified with the instruction that needs reviewing.

“The idea behind that is for staffs under Malaita province, both direct and seconded staffs to have bible everyday to follow.

“Because the latest edition of the staff instruction was done in 2007 and needs to be reviewed.

“So as part of the roadmap we will review MPSI,” he said.

He said areas to review under the MPSI covers the direct staff code of conducts, their movements, holiday leave, sick leave and others.

Misi said the review will take certain stages of workshop including feasibility in substations and other provincial own institutions within the province.

He said his team already visited some institutions this year and the remaining ones are scheduled for next year.

Misi said the visit is purposely to obtain first hand data from those stationed there and see how the current MPSI affects them.

“Because inside the MPSI it stated the cost for allowance, travelling and other within it that needs reviewing.

“For example, the $50 touring allowance started within MPSI is no longer relevant at the moment, we need to get exact information and put it into the review of MPSI,” he said.

Misi added that MPSI also holds the disciplinary measure of MPG, that if staffs breach the rules or regulations they will subjected to MPSI where particular clause to deal with the offence concerned.

For instance, he said MPSI has the right to warn a particular staff three times if instructions are breached.

He said they believe the review of this MPSI will help to strengthen the workforce of the province.

Misi said they already launched a proposal on the review to the MPGIS, and the greenlight to carry out the programme next year was already given.

BY LORETTA BRIGIDIA MANELE

ACCORDING to Roland Sikua, national parliament’s Chief Research Officer for the Library and Research department, budget briefs aims to inform and raise the level of debate when it comes to discussions on the budget.

Sikua was speaking at “Bringing the Budget Closer to Home”, a two day training session co-hosted by Pacific Media Assistance Scheme (PACMAS) and the national parliament office for journalists and local media from Nov 29th -30th at the Paul Tovua Complex building in Honiara.

He said budget briefs are prepared by the parliamentary budget team which is headed by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) secretary and consists of staff from the Committee Secretariat and staff from the Library, Research and Information services of the national parliament.

Sikua expressed that these brief documents which they prepare for members of the PAC and members of parliament contain information such as trends of a ministry’s budget over the past four years, relevant SIG policy areas concerning or relating to the ministry and issues raised by the ministry in relation to the budget.

Assisting with the inquiry of the budget by the PAC is another role of the parliamentary budget team.

He said this involves a rapporteur during the inquiry, in other words, someone assigned to report the proceedings of the inquiry.

Sikua adds that they also compile issues and recommendations made by the committee (PAC) that are to be included in their report.