Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has rejected claims by the Opposition Leader Mathew Wale that suggests the Solomon Islands-China Security Cooperation is a personal deal to protect the Prime Minister.
Wale’s claims were further propagated by anti-government offshoots including the local and international media, which, the Prime Minister described as “distasteful and ridiculous” at best.
But Sogavare said in Parliament Thursday last week that the ongoing scheme by the Opposition Leader and his cohorts have not been truthful and instead they have been feeding misinformation to our people.
The Prime Minister said the Security Agreement is not a private arrangement but a bilateral treaty between two sovereign states – Solomon Islands and the People’s Republic of China.
Sogavare said a lot has been said on the decision by a democratically elected Government, empowered by the Constitution of Solomon Islands to enter into security arrangements with partners of choice.
Quite interestingly, only the security arrangement between the People’s Republic of China and Solomon Islands is of concern to certain persons.
Solomon Islands also have a security arrangement with Australia that was signed in 2017 without consultation with the public. This was also not a private agreement but it is an agreement between Solomon Islands and Australia.
Both agreements with Australia and China were endorsed by Cabinet and executed in accordance with the country’s national security objectives to maintain internal peace and stability.
Sogavare said the Opposition Leader knows that the processes that the Government has employed and continues to employ complies with the system of representative democracy, yet he fails to make that acknowledgement because he refuses to accept that it is this representative democracy that places him as the leader of Opposition.
“I fail to see the logic in the Leader’s arguments in light of the foundations of our democracy and system of government articulated in the Constitution,” Sogavare said.
“If the Leader wants to change that, he should start lobbying to have that system changed,” he added.
Sogavare said the only way that system can be changed is to amend the Constitution and the Opposition Leader knows this, yet he stands and cries that the Government did not properly conduct itself when he himself knows that the Government is complying with what the Constitution of Solomon Islands provides for.
–GCU PRESS
