Premier Sade calls for Minister Seleso’s removal
By OFANI EREMAE
GUADALCANAL Premier Francis Sade has called for the immediate removal of Provincial Government minister Rolland Seleso.
He claimed Seleso is playing “delaying tactics” with the disbursement of service grant to his government.
“I call on the prime minister to either sack or reshuffle his provincial government minister,” Sade told reporters yesterday.
“This man does not have vision and qualities to be a national leader,” he added.
“In fact he was demanding that I apologise to the Government before they can release the service grant to my province.”
Sade said these information were relayed to him by his officials.
But Seleso last night denied the claim outright.
“How could the premier come up with such claim?” Seleso asked.
“I have no right to delay or stop service grants to Guadalcanal or any of the provinces,” he said.
“The service grants will be released at their right time.
“The 2021 budget has just been passed this week.
“When all the paper works are done, the ministry will pay out service grants to all the provinces.”
Sade also accused Seleso of being part of moves to lodge a second motion of no-confidence against his leadership.
Sade defeated a no-confidence vote members of the non-executive tabled against him last month.
At that time, he claimed certain Guadalcanal MPs backed by loggers were behind the motion.
“Another motion of no-confidence against my leadership is on its way,” Sade said yesterday.
“This is according to the minister for provincial government,” he claimed.
“The minister has been telling members of my executive who are ward members within his constituency to leave my government.
“This is unbelievable when you consider he is the minister responsible for provincial government.
“But they are free to bring on the motion of no confidence.”
However, responding to this, Seleso said:
“This is another wild claim.
“It is not my role to cause instability within Guadalcanal or any of our provinces.
“My job is to bring stability, not instability.
“Sade needs to calm down and work together with the seven MPs from Guadalcanal inside the national government.
“I have no intention of working against Sade’s leadership.”
Seleso added, Sade has no right to call for his removal.
“This is a matter best left for the prime minister to decide on, not a premier,” Seleso said.
Meanwhile, Sade claimed since he came into power, certain MPs from Guadalcanal have displayed dislike for his leadership.
“I don’t know why they are not happy with my leadership.
“These national leaders should know those of us leading Guadalcanal came in to serve our people, not ourselves.
“In fact we have been cleaning up the mess some of these leaders have created and left during their time in the provincial government.”
He added, his Government fully supports National Government policies.
“No, we are not anti-government. We support national government policies.
“But that does not stop us from speaking up when we see things are not right with policy implementation.”
Sade also defended his stand with Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani to challenge the legality of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF).
“My stand with Suidani is not to go against government policy.
“We are basically challenging the legality of CDF, to see whether it’s right under law and the constitution for MPs to administer and dish out public funds,” he said.
