BY LORETTA B MANELE
Opposition Leader Mathew Wale has raised the need to see whether an investment will be progressive in the lives of Solomon Islanders.
He stressed on this whilst contributing to the debate on the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Bill 2024 on Monday, May 19.
Wale stressed that when it comes to investments, they must not be simplistic in such determinations and it is not hard to gauge whether a particular investment will have positive impacts on Solomon Islanders.
He said what they want to see is that foreign investors like any other businesses make profits and at the same time have a positive impact on Solomon Islanders while using environmentally sustainable practices.
“These two objectives, must be held in balance.”
On the other hand, he said if foreign investors make too much profit and little of any advantage to Solomon Islanders and degrade our environment, this would be exploitative and this would be an undesirable outcome.
“We know what this looks and feels like from long years of experience with logging. Billions have been made by foreigners, landowners have become poorer after logging and the environment has been severely degraded. Not a good outcome at all.”
He added that in today’s world, criminal activity in international trade and commerce has become very complex and often very hard to recognize and stop.
Henceforth, Wale stressed that Solomon Islands must have a robust legal and compliance system and the capacity to enforce modernized laws.
He pointed out that the country needs to expand its network of tax treaties with many more countries to benefit from reciprocal enforcement agreements and arrangements.
Wale said without a robust legal, compliance and enforcement capacity, Solomon Islands is extremely vulnerable to attracting the wrong type of investor who might be interested only precisely because of our weak legal, compliance and enforcement systems.
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