BY JENNIFER KUSAPA

THE Police Commissioner has lashed out at government officials who break the law of Solomon Islands.

Matthew Varley says that government officials should be role models in upholding the law of this country.

Speaking in his weekly media conference, he said it is disappointing to see government officials breaking the law of this country.

Recently a senior police officer, senior official from the Ministry of Infrastructure Development and an officer of the Ministry of Forest were involved in drink driving accidents.

He said he had been giving many messages over recent months about drink driving because it is dangerous and a risk to the community right across Solomon Islands, particularly in Honiara and traffic officers are out there every day making sure people are not drink-driving.

“The message is very clear if you drink don’t drive and if you are going to drive don’t drink the limit of alcohol in a person’s blood is 0.05 percent and above that you are breaking the law and you will be arrested and prosecuted and taken to court,” Mr Varley said.

“The three very serious cases happened recently of people breaking that law is not good

“I am not happy with that, we have got three cases of officials in government vehicles of government department including the police force breaking the law.”

He also said that the senior police officer have been suspended and he also acknowledges the work of the young traffic officers in having the courage in professionally dealing with the case of the senior police officer.

By Mike Puia

A Choiseul Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) has come out and shed light on the issue of tender selection in the province.

MPA for Choiseul Bay Ward, Josiah Vana, said there have been concerns raised by the people in his Ward about the selection of contractors for the tenders.

“In fact, some people in my Ward strongly believe the process of selecting a contractor is bias,” Vana said.

He said a tender committee is doing the work but it appears the work done is unfair.

Vana confirmed witnessing cases where the same people get contracts, adding it has been happening for years.

Vana’s admittance challenges claims by the Provincial Capacity Development Advisor, Korolyn Zutu, that the tender selection process is fair.

Vana said the tender committee is doing its screening but there are issues observed like fairness on decisions to award tender and variation.

He said the provincial accounts committee must properly scrutinise issues relating to tenders.

The MPA for Ward 8 said there is a case where a contractor got the tender to build the Treasury Office.

He said $481,000 was approved for the contract however the contractor did not receive the amount of the contract.

Vana said even their finance team could not find this money.

“This money simply lost but it has been approved under our budget and it has been paid out but the contractor has not received anything,” Vana said.

He added there are guidelines in the province when awarding tenders but outcomes must reflect these guidelines.

“When you have outcomes that do not reflect guidelines, you know there are issues within the system that has been tampered with,” Vana added.

By Taromane Martin

THE role of the Ministry of Home Affairs and the government should be limited to only governance and financing for the 2023 Pacific Games, a statement from the Solomon Islands 2023 Pacific Games Taskforce stated yesterday.

They made the statement in response to queries from SunSPORTS regarding an article published online via the Solomon Business Magazine (SBM) facebook page and shared onto the popular FSII Facebook page on Tuesday.

SBM online claimed Prime Minister Rick Hounipwela had removed the Pacific Games portfolio from the Ministry of Home Affairs to the PMO because he was unhappy with the progress made so far in hosting the game.

However, the taskforce said they are close to finalizing everything for their report before their term in office ends in June so that ground work and actual games’ preparation could start.

“One of the milestone achievements for the task force is to recommend a date in June for the commencement and the implementation of the PG 2023 Act,” the statement said.

“When that happens, the three bodies namely the National Hosting Authority (NHA), Facilities Committee and the Games Organizing Committee (GOC) which is to be appointed under the Act will take over the organization and implementation of all the projects and programs for the games and to eventually administer the games. The role of MHA and PMO should be limited to governance and financing.

“We’ve followed the agenda the Pacific Games Council (PGC) gave us. At the moment everything is still in the preparation stage before the bulldozers start coming in.

“Dealing with land is not an easy thing. There are certain issues which need to be discussed and straightened before ground work can start.

“If the government just told us to develop the land then everything is set. But right now KGVI School and SINU seemed to be the fighting progress.

“All these issues needs to be discussed properly, every one agree then we go ahead with the constructions.

“Right now we’ve done the regulations and as soon as the Act is implemented, preparations should get underway.

“Finance is the area the government should be focusing on. Money and land – those are the two issues the government should be worrying about.

“Have a subcommittee or something to secure the land, a subcommittee of cabinet to work on finance. That’s all they should be doing.

“Rather than they make a change now they should wait. Let the Task Force complete its work then after June they can have a committee formed for the construction stage in placed to report to cabinet,” the statement adds.

Meanwhile, Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Home Affairs George Palua said he is aware of the situation but is still waiting to be fully briefed about it.