Dear Editor – The Parliamentary Entitlements Commission (PEC) would like to briefly respond and clarify some incorrect statements made by the Solomon Star regarding PEC Membership as published in its newspaper issue # 5798 of Friday 17th April, 2015.
Firstly, the Chairman of PEC is NOT a politician as stated in the report.
The truth is, the Constitution does not allow a politician to be appointed as Chairman of PEC or to be chairman of any other Commission for that matter.
The PEC chairman is appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister as required by the Constitution under section 69A (2).
Secondly, the Constitution also stipulates that both the Minister of Finance and the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee are also members of the Parliamentary Entitlements Commission.
In the case of the Public Accounts Committee, Rick Hou himself is the current chairman and therefore is a member of the Parliamentary Entitlements Commission.
As much as possible, PEC strives to ensure that it does not make any decisions in isolation of these two important offices which have an important role in providing relevant advice, not merely as politicians, rather in their capacity as Minister of Finance, and Chairman of Public Accounts Committee.
It is hoped that this brief response will help to clear some of the incorrect information reported in the Solomon Star regarding the composition and role of the PEC.
Johnson Siapu
Chairman
Parliamentary Entitlement(s) Commission
