DEAR EDITOR – This is a response to a letter by Atenia Tahu in your Thursday 13th May edition.
There are other media presentations about the RCDF that Atenia refers to, but my particular discussion of RCDF in a previous article is in relation to the fact that the ‘development’ segment of our national budget is about 10%.
The rest of the budget is Honiara wages, privileges and programs, formally put forward as ‘recurrent budget’.
I must say Atenia needs to fully understand the issues I was discussing in my article and not to discuss rural areas and peoples in clichés.
My issues are: ‘Development’ underpinnings specific to Solomon Islands, ‘Development’ and the rural areas and peoples of our country, and the role played by RCDF within the ‘development’ segment of our national budget.
And Atenia’s inclusion of this RCDF discussion as a Taiwan government ploy into this country indicates no understanding of the history of RCDF within our Parliament and an even poorer acceptance of our relations with development partners.
RCDF was developed in our Parliament simply as additional buying power for MPs to help with much needed basics within our constituencies, an acknowledgement of the short-comings of our Honiara-focused governing system and budgetary use.
It was not developed by the Taiwan government for us.
Recent governments arrangements with the Taiwanese government aid program to focus on the RCDF is a combination of our government’s requests and the Taiwanese government’s own focus on rural development – taking their own development journey from rural economic base to a developed society as example.
Atenia’s issue with Taiwan seems to be about them buying us into their international recognition with RCDF.
Atenia, each of our development partners do exactly that!
And every other country that we do not have diplomatic relations with are simply vying for the same opportunity into our country for international recognition.
This is what international relations is about – and one of the underpinnings for developing countries demanding shamelessly for various assistance from developed countries.
The details of how each MP is responsible or abusive about these ‘development’ dynamics is a matter for each electorate(constituency) to assess and vote for or against their own MPs.
This, Atenia, is the meaning of people’s strength within a democratic system – they vote for or against someone who is supportive or abusive with them.
This is not an RCDF mentality, it is the encouragement of people’s exercise of democracy given what is in the plate in front of them. If our government has a ‘welfare fund’ (like the ‘dole system’ in UK, Australia and New Zealand for their unemployed) the unemployed people here (85%) would vote MPs based on the increase or decrease, opening or restriction of such governmental support system.
And if you wish for people here to vote purely on some philosophical ideals like transparency and accountability, or some educational dream you have about ‘look and learn’, then you really are in a different world to the one lived here in Solomon Islands. People in the rural areas (85% of our total population) do not have the potentials and opportunities you might dream up in Honiara open to them.
Rural people survive on a day-to-day basis, with whatever basic tools and extra foodstuff their wantoks or MPs send them from Honiara.
Very possibly you are hoping to capture such ‘look and learn’ programs and projects for you to take and teach the rural people about in workshops.
And should this happen, I wonder how much direct livelihood benefits you will get compared with what the rural people will get from such programs and projects.
And how many of such programs have already taken place over the last thirty years – and can you show any comprehensive tallying of outcomes and analyses over these?
Atenia, I have lived outside of our country too, and have slogged my guts out for my own education and living.
But I do not throw these against rural people I come across. You have to communicate with our rural people over what is open and available to them – which is not much at this time, and mostly curtailed by Honiara interests and clichés.
Your criticism of rural people’s lack of potentials and opportunities shows absolute lack of understanding of our rural people and lack of appreciation of what our rural areas and people are to all of us.
You really have to be a non-Solomon Islander not to appreciate why we are precious about our rural areas and peoples.
You point out that rural communities are not responsible therefore they do not get development, and that they spend too much time talking about their ‘rights’ to development and RCDF.
Your comments are like blaming women for their general lopsided state in our country’s development as a result of them not being responsible.
Or blaming an ethnic minority for not developing because they are not responsible.
You need to apologise to our rural people through the media for those irresponsible views and your chic in putting them out the way you did.
Angikinui Francis
Sagheraghi Village
Gizo
Western Province
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