SOLOMON Islands Democratic Party, which launched its election platform on Monday in Honiara, has made a promise.
If it leads the next government, it would come up with a law that would remove the Rural Constituency Development Fund (RCDF) from the control of Members of Parliament.
It’s not clear whether the promise is contained in the party’s policy document or just a passing statement from spokesman Mathew Wale.
Whatever it is, everyone will agree that removing the RCDF from the control of MPs should be a priority move for any new government.
We have said it before, and we will say it again.
MPs are elected to make laws for the country. They should not be preoccupied with the management of millions of dollars of public funds.
That job should best be left to public servants who are trained in financial management.
We do understand MPs are finding it hard to let go of the RCDF because it provides them the cash they could access to meet emergency constituency matters.
If this is one of the reasons why they are refusing to let go of the RCDF, we could solve this by creating a special discretionary fund for MPs.
A fund of say $20,000 a year per constituency. That would be left under the sole discretion of each MP and have to be met by the Government.
The RCDF is currently provided by Taiwan. It comes at $400,000 a year per constituency.
Add that with the Millennium Development Fund ($400,000 a year), the Micro Project ($200,000 a year) and the government funded Livelihood Fund ($1 million a year), we have $2 million a year being made available for rural development.
By any standards, that’s a lot of money. Put to proper and good use, we could see miracles happening in our rural areas in a given year.
This is not happening right now because the MPs have the final say on how the $2 million is spent in his constituency.
The Solomon Islands Democratic Party says it will remove the control of MPs from these funds if it comes to power.
We wish to add that any government that comes after this year’s election should do exactly just that.
This is to free our leaders to do what they are elected to do – making laws for the country.
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