Advise from Honiara based Malaita group
BY CHARLES KADAMANA
Honiara-based Malaita group spokesman Lawrence Makili has advised all Malaitans to allow his group deal with the petition that is being resubmitted to the government on Friday.
He said they have no interest on violence and will continue to have dialogue with the office of the Prime Minister to ensure they take onboard their request.
The group has requested the Prime Minister to
- Honour and respects the Auki Communique and ceases its attempts to extinguish or curtail the right of the self-determination by the people of Malaita as represented through their MARA government in the said communique
- Keeps the Chinese community party, its companies or agents our of Malaita province a made blatantly clear in the Auki Communique
- Refrain from weaponing infrastructure development in Malaita and specifically keep the World Bank SIIRAP Project on Malaita province alive according to the World Bank procurement guidelines
- Immediately ceases all contracts granted to entities owned, endorsed or associated with Member of Parliament or their agents in the building of infrastructure in Malaita as sign of good faith and an important step to eradication corruption from the machinery of government in Solomon Islands.
- Focuses on good, honest and transparent governance and stop petty politicking and disadvantaging the Malaita population
- Puts a halt on the influx of cheap Asian labour into Solomon Islands who are systematically taking away economic opportunities from Solomon islanders
- Fulfils it commitment and mandate to support Malaita province including commitment made in the Townsville peace agreement of the year 2000
- Affords Malaita the opportunity to explore and exercise rights and freedoms of democratic states as enshrined in the Solomon Island constitution
- The DCGA to lift total ban of sea cucumber harvesting for our Malaita outer islander’s livelihood
- DCGA to immediately address mitigating measures to counter the desperate climate change situation affection our Malaita Outer islanders.
According to them they observed that the treatment of MARA government by DCGA is a grave concern.
This is evident with the DCGA government through its Minister of Communication and Aviation intends to bring or already brought to Cabinet a paper seeking to withdraw SIRAP World Bank project from the province, lack of consultation to secure diplomatic relation with PRC, facilitate influx of Chinese labour under PRC funded project instead of ensuring jobs for Solomon Islanders, not honouring Auki Communiques and negligence to address food shortage and climate change in Malaita Outer Islands.
Special Secretary to Prime Minister Albert Kabui when receiving the petition on Friday acknowledges the important of dialogue and assured the government will respond after looking through the petition to determine how these issues raised can be addressed.
Last week a rowdy crowd almost took a peaceful march without the knowledge of the group.
Representing the Honiara-based Malaita group are Lawrence Makili, Vincent S Gae, Saxon Ofata, Knoxy Atue, Jeffery Aruhe and Martin Maeaba.
