BY LORETTA B. MANELE
The government must make some incentive schemes that encourage indigenous Solomon Islanders to participate in businesses.
This sentiment was shared in a recent parliament sitting by Rick Hou, member of Parliament for Small Malaita.
Speaking of the business sector in the country, he expressed that the sector right now is saturated by non-indigenous Solomon Islanders.
Hou said he sees this as a dangerous trend.
“This is a time bomb. We cannot allow the indigenous population to be spectators of economic actors acting on their land and, in their country.
“We must make sure that we do something and this is the responsibility of the government. We are not chasing away the non-indigenous.”
He said they cannot turn a blind eye while assuming that this doesn’t exist or that it will go away.
Hou said this will not go away but can only be mitigated by decisive actions by the government.
“We the government must make some incentive schemes that encourage indigenous Solomon Islanders to participate in businesses.”
Hou said the country used to have a regulation that used to work for everyone but at the moment the laws work only for a few and mostly against indigenous Solomon Islanders.
On this note, he also urged the minister of commerce to work on this.
“We need to resurrect this law and regulation work with DBSI to help indigenous Solomon Islanders to get into business.”
