Ronia slams budget claim

Dear Editor – In Star No. 5834 I raised a concern over the press release in which SIG Media Consultant, Alfred Sasako, was boastful about the “A Major Economic Victory” which the DCCG had achieved during the first quarter of this year. I was glad that Gabriel Taloikwai hit the nail on its head and…

HCC tender board

Dear Editor – Reading through the article on the Saturday 30th May 2015 in the Island Sun newspaper gives me a lot of questions about the heading “Public call City Mayor to clarify legality of the HCC Central Tender board”. The concerned citizen asked the Lord Major to clarify whether its Honiara City Council Central…

Immigration hiccup

Dear Editor – Please editor allow me space to kindly call on the Director of Immigration to clearly clarify the piece of legislation regarding the issuance of entry visitor’s visa to foreigners coming to visit our country. Currently it seems to us that all sorts of advice as well as new conditions and procedures are…

Becoming self-sufficient

Dear Editor – Following up on the theme of sustaining our rural communities, I would like to share a little story with your readers which might help to encourage one or more to become self-sufficient in food production. The story begins in Vanuatu (then known as the New Hebrides) in 1972-1974 when I commanded the…

We need genuine foreign investment

TRANSPARENCY Solomon Islands is asking the question – do we have sufficient laws and policies to attract legitimate foreign investment? The Democratic Coalition for Change Government (DCCG) has announced a number of policies designed to attract new foreign investors to our shores. How can we ensure that the investors we attract will generate benefits for…

Bauxite saga raises many questions

UNDER the Mining Act, an operator is only allowed to hold three tenements at a time. Anything other than that is illegal. So why did PT Mega Bintang Borneo of Indonesia reportedly owned 11 tenements under different names but with the same directors and yet continued to be allowed to operate in the country? Surely,…

Sustaining rural communities

Dear Editor – With 80 percent of the population living in the rural areas of the Solomon Islands and largely dependent on traditional subsistence farming methods, it has been my aim in recent weeks to focus on alternative sources of obtaining income and to provide added food security. A broad definition of well-being encompasses three…

Major economic victory

Dear Editor – With such a huge surplus of $364 million for only the first three months of this year, it would be $1,456 million,( nearly one and half billion dollars ) by the end of the year. Great news indeed! The Minister of Finance hailed this achievement so far as a great success and…

MPS tax free award

800×600 Normal 0 false false false EN-AU X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:””; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} Dear Editor – The reason given by PEC to defend the tax free award they had awarded the 50 MPs to…