BY JOHN HOUANIHAU

A Regional Workshop for Human Rights Defenders commenced yesterday in Honiara at the Heritage Park Hotel. This three-day event, which began on Tuesday, October 8, and will conclude on Thursday, October 10, has been organized by the Pacific Human Rights Network.

The workshop aims to familiarize participants with essential human rights concepts and mechanisms, particularly from the perspective of the United Nations, while providing them with practical knowledge to actualize human rights and foster positive social change.

In her opening remarks, Ms. Heike Alefsen, the Regional Representative of the Pacific Regional Office, emphasized that human rights defenders are pivotal agents of change. She articulated that these defenders envision a better future for all and possess the means to transform that vision into reality.

“We all have the right – and the responsibility – to defend human rights. This fundamental yet impactful notion was the foundation of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly 50 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),” she stated.

The workshop has gathered students from the University of the South Pacific (USP) and the Solomon Islands National University (SINU), along with representatives from government agencies, private sector organizations, and civil society groups.

On the first day, participants were provided with an overview of the three-day agenda before delving into more detailed discussions on Wednesday and Thursday. The opening session also included an introduction to the topic of human rights defenders, along with a panel discussion and a question-and-answer segment.

Participants were encouraged to engage actively by posing questions and sharing comments with representatives from the Pacific Human Rights Network and the panelists. The workshop will continue today and conclude tomorrow, October 10, at the Heritage Park Hotel.

BY LORETTA B MANELE

Together, we can make a difference for a safer, cleaner and a more sustainable future for our marine environment.

British High Commissioner to Solomon Islands, Tom Coward, made the statement at the “Strengthening Marine Pollution Incident Resilience in the Pacific Islands” workshop which kicked off yesterday at the Heritage Park Hotel.

He stressed that marine pollution is widely recognized as one of the three major threats to our ocean along with habitat destruction and over exploitation of marine resources.

Coward said marine pollution incidents can have devastating impacts on the marine life, coastal communities, local livelihoods, the national economy and the global system.

He voiced that the importance of coastal and marine environments to every aspect of people’s livelihood in Solomon Islands cannot be overstated and the impacts from marine pollution is a major concern for Solomon Islands and the pacific.

“People know and have seen the huge damage on fragile environments, the damage on communities and the high cost to the economy”

Coward expressed that this is not only a local issue but a global one and the United Kingdom is delighted to be able to support Solomon Islands on maritime pollution response.

“I am absolutely delighted that we are able to support Solomon Islands’ regional efforts on maritime pollution response”

He said by sharing our knowledge and experience and bringing together best practice and lived experiences, we can develop more effective strategies and enhance our readiness.

Coward encouraged participants from the region and regional agencies to participate in discussions, ask questions and share their experiences through open dialogue.

“Together we can make a difference for safer, cleaner and more sustainable future for our marine environment”

He said the workshop is part of UK’s wider efforts on building a sustainable ocean partnership with Solomon Islands.

“Something that is of paramount importance in Solomon Islands and in the pacific is a global significance to us all”

Auditor General gives urgent call to strengthen government grants regime after ESP audit reveals major fraud risk, weak administration and poor transparency

BY JOHN HOUANIHAU

Auditor General David Dennis has called on government to improve its legal and regulatory system for payment of grants.

Mr Dennis made the call following an audit by his office into the covid-19 economic stimulus package (ESP) revealed “major fraud risk, poor to non-existent administrative controls and almost zero transparency in the disbursement of $309 million in government funds”.

In calling for an “urgent strengthening of the legal and regulatory regime for the administration of government grants”, AG Dennis said:

“The ESP lacked underlying legislative or procedure guidance for issuing grants on the scale involved for the ESP.

“This coupled with the allocation of insufficient resources needed to adequately receive, process, pay and document the thousands of applications, led to weak internal controls.”

This weakness in administrative controls, combined with missing documentation led to a very serious lack of transparency as to how ESP funds were dispersed and ultimately used, a statement from the Auditor General yesterday said.

“In most cases here was little or no documentation so it was not always possible to determine whose hands the funds ended up in or how they were actually used,” Dennis said.

“In many cases documentation to support the validity of actions and transactions were not available. This area remains a concern across Government which requires urgent attention.”

The abuse of the Government Imprest account was particularly concerning and raised a high risk of fraud with many payments being signed for by Government officials on behalf of beneficiaries without documented authorisation, including payments totalling over $6 million being signed for by one officer.

The ESP was rolled out by the Government during the recent pandemic, and was intended to inject funding into the domestic economy to stimulate economic activity, the OAG statement said.

The scope of the Office of the Auditor General (OAG)’s audit did not include assessing the impact of the ESP but focused on how the funds were administered.

AG Dennis said it was important to acknowledge the extraordinary circumstances created by COVID19 which heightened the inherent risk for expediting procurements and delivery of payments and services at the expense of following established procedures.

The Minister of Finance was briefed on the findings and recommendations of the ESP audit report following its tabling with the National Parliament Office. The OAG has also extended an invitation to the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the Leader of Opposition and the Leader of Independents for a briefing on ESP Audit findings, the OAG statement said.

The audit – the last by the OAG into Government COVID-19 expenditure – was conducted at the request of the Government following their commitment to the International Monetary Fund for all COVID-19 spending to be audited. OAG intends to follow up on commitments made in future audits of the Ministry.

The OAG is one of the key accountability institutions established under the Solomon Islands Constitution which requires the Auditor General to audit and report on the public accounts of Solomon Islands, including all Ministries, offices, special funds, courts and authorities of the Government, and of the government of Honiara City and of all provincial governments.

The full ESP Audit Report can be downloaded at: ESP Audit Report 2024.pdf (oag.gov.sb).

BY NED GAGAHE

The Office of the Auditor General’s (OAG) audit into the Economic Stimulus Package (ESP), highlighted significant issues in the allocation of $60 million in grants to the productive and resources sector.

The funds were distributed through the Ministry of Finance and Treasury (MoFT) payment system, aimed at providing essential support to local businesses.

The audit uncovered, a total of 1,515 payments were made to 165 businesses, but the nature of these payments remains unclear.

The report revealed that while some funds were directly allocated, others were used to procure equipment for businesses.

The audit uncovered that several retail businesses received multiple smaller payments, for beneficiaries, while some received larger sums classified as grants.

The OAG raised concerns over the procurement process, revealing that applicants selected their own suppliers without any formal competitive bidding.

Although the MoFT stated that a general bid waiver had been approved by the Central Tender Board, the audit suggests that this waiver did not comply with established procurement regulations.

Field visits conducted by the OAG indicated that while some supplies provided through the ESP positively impacted local businesses—such as equipment for fishing ventures and materials for tourist accommodation—there were notable discrepancies.

In one instance, an applicant requested an outboard motor and freezer but only received a generator, which, while useful, was not what they needed for their fishing business.

Another applicant received building supplies intended for debt repayment instead.

The audit highlights a lack of follow-up by officials regarding the delivery of supplies. In cases where grants were insufficient for applicants to complete their projects, some did not collect their supplies, resulting in windfall profits for vendors.

BY JOHN HOUANIHAU

Assurance of managing conflicts of interest under the COVID-19 Economic Stimulus Package (ESP) applications is not true, the ESP 2020-2021 audit report has found.

The ESP Oversight Committee claimed that under the reference policy, the conflict of interest or potential conflicts of interest has been properly managed where all recommendations were made.

However, according to finding number two of the report, government officials did not properly identify or manage conflicts of interest or potential conflicts of interest arising during the administration of the ESP.

“In this, the example that I alluded to, where we spoke about one government officer signing for 251 interest account checks worth approximately $6.8 million,’’ said Auditor General David Dennis.

“That same officer was also involved in encouraging and preparing applications for individuals. The committee, however, wish to confirm that under the reference policy, the conflict of interest or potential conflicts of interest have been properly managed through the establishment of an Oversight Committee where all recommendations were made,’’ said Dennis.

“But it’s important to see that there is a linkage here. On to our next finding, again still about grant administration. What we found was that some grant criteria were established, but there was often no documented assessment against the criteria,’’ he said.

He said that Documentation supporting grants was often unavailable and some successful applications do not appear to meet the designated criteria.

“What we also saw when we were reviewing the documentation is that there was a big difference between the quality of the applications that were received. Some submitted a comprehensive business case with data and graphs detailing the history of the business, others just submitted what is little more than a request to fund a business idea,’’ Dennis explains.

He said that the Information provided in the application addressing the stated criteria did not seem to be a determinant of whether the funding would be provided or how much would be provided.

“There was no documentation available to indicate what was considered in assessing the application. In some cases, some people applied for $80,000 and received $5,000. In other cases, they applied for a smaller amount and got a bigger amount,’’ said Dennis.

“So, it wasn’t clear to us how this was decided, and I think the concern that we also had is that the documentation supporting this was often not available,’’ he said.