By Gregory Haka
Members of Parliament for West Are’Are, John Maneniaru and Small Malaita, Rick Hou have raised the concern of having more constituencies to cater for the huge growing population.
Both MPs spoke about this during the Sine Die Motion in parliament last week.
Small Malaita MP Rick Hou said he has raised this matter of constituencies boundaries over the years, but he will say it again, that the government must take action to review current constituency boundaries.
“With the appointment of the Commission now completed, government must ensure resources for them to do their work.
“This is a long overdue matter for many of us, in the case of small Malaita. It has been recommended in the report of 2008 to split small Malaita into two constituencies.
“However, this is yet to be done. My constituency is a very large one, both geographically and demographically. That makes service delivery very challenging,” he said.
MP for West Are’are John Maneniaru added to Hou’s sentiments.
“Some of our constituencies are being populated and they are definitely struggling and facing a lot of challenges. And it is sad to say 15 years ago, we did not come up with any report or any active work as the last report was in 2009, and that takes too long thus, now is the high time to address it.
“We call on the Parliamentary Commission to meet to debate this matter as soon as possible, as I already alluded to. It is very, very important, so it means we need fairness in mind.
“We are just having funding and other resources for people in the local constituency. Whilst we are in waiting, it is indeed, to me, very unfair and brings a lot of injustice to the populated constituencies of our country,” he stressed.
Maneniaru said if the government continues to share its resources to the 50 constituencies equally across the board, then constituencies with larger populations will have portions of their populations miss out on development opportunities because they are just too many.
He pointed out that this is because our 50 constituencies are not the same and this really needs to be addressed rather than letting our people struggle and be poor in our beloved country.
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