DEAR EDITOR, I disagree with the statement made by the Prime minister in public media on land issue in Malaita province.
The land dispute issue should be treated as part and partial of the policy and strategy of development for Malaita province because development cannot happen without land.
And so for any Malaitian leaders to isolate land dispute away from the development in that province only reflect poorly on the mindset that are ignorance and reluctant to address economic development in that province.
It is not right to compare Malaita with other sister provinces in the nation because of the huge population and patrilineal customary land ownership that has been practice and experience in that province that create favourable environment for more land dispute issues.
It is childish for our national leaders to blame the people in the provinces for land dispute issue because as elected leaders people are entrusted us to play our roles in addressing issues of concern that affect livelihood.
It is sad to say that for the last 35 years none of the effort and commitment from the provincial and national MPs from Malaita has been shown towards the land dispute related issues mounted to development in the province through establishment of right policies and financial assistance in addressing the issue.
While the billions of dollars of development funds as CDF has been poured into the province through the discretions of the 14 MPs, nothing tangible had seen happening, not single tiny percentage of those funding has been gears towards the land related issues within the province.
The customary chiefs and land owners are left alone struggling without funding and directive policies from the government dealing with the land dispute issue with lengthy and costly land court system practice currently in the nation.
There has been a poor working relationship with the national MPs and the provincial leaders when sharing ideas and priorities for the future welfare and development aspiration of the Malaita province is concern.
The people of Malaita have the legal right to ask and take into court their 14 MPs as where are the development funds such as CDF that provide purposely to develop Malaita province for the last 10 to 20 years has been used?
Our national leaders must be mindful when making public statement on the development related issues or else we are barking on the issue that we failed to address.
If the elected leaders failed to uphold their roles and obligations what are leaders for?
God bless the struggling people of Malaita province.
Jacob Ofasia
Talise market
