BY LORETTA BRIGIDIA MANELE
ON Monday, Solomon Islands Postal Corporation and Bibimoney representative, Mr Martin Hine called in at the Prime Minister’s Office to speak with Prime Minister Rick Houenipwela about the current plans and progress on their new mobile wallet system.
Solomon Post CEO, Mr Allan Arafoa explained to the Prime Minister that like other stakeholders who are financial inclusion partners they too want to see how they can help in providing financial services throughout the country right down to the people in the rural areas.
He stresses that knowing that most of government workers are based in the provinces, they decided to make their way to one of the provincial capitals, Auki in Malaita province to find out the problems these workers encounter with regards to how they receive their salaries.
Mr Arafoa said that the trip got them communicating with more than 30 teachers, 5 police officers and 16 health workers and what they learned was that they would travel on Wednesday or Thursday to Auki just to collect their pay.
He added that what these workers had to go through if their salaries were not ready at that time was having wait in Auki till Monday the following week which he voices will then have an impact at their work places whether it is providing education or health services.
“So we feel that if the system is introduced it will help to minimize some of those problems”, Mr Arafoa said.
