ACTING Leader of Opposition Hon John Dean Kuku says the 2026 Budget is far from addressing the hardships ordinary Solomon Islanders are facing on a daily basis.
Addressing Parliament during his Budget speech, Hon Kuku said the government is preaching the 2026 Budget as a disciplined, forward-looking, transformative instrument that will carry us toward our 50th independence anniversary with confidence.
However, he described the rhetoric as ‘attractive’ on paper but will not solve many of the underlying problems affecting the lives of our people.
The North New Georgia MP said growth projections have been downgraded.
“Inflation is higher than the government previously promised. The cost of living remains unbearable for many families. There is no anti-poverty strategy. Food security and nutrition are still treated as side effects of export agriculture instead of central goals. Electricity and fuel remain expensive and vulnerable to global shocks. Housing and urban land issues are ignored. Labour mobility is invisible in the budget,” he said.
The acting Leader of Opposition said the fiscal policy has not truly turned a corner.
He said the government continue to rely more than ever on donors and on a hoped-for mining boom to balance the books.
“Debt keeps rising. Other charges are squeezed, but there is no clear plan to improve the quality of spending,” he said.
Hon Kuku questioned whether the 2026 Budget would change the daily realities of ordinary Solomon Islanders in a meaningful way.
“Our people deserve better. They deserve a government that does not only speak about transformation but actually changes the way resources are raised, allocated, and used,” he said.
Hon Kuku said this country needs a government that closes the gap between ambition and execution, a government that treats poverty, inequality, and exclusion as urgent national emergencies.
He said last year the government assured that inflation would ease.
Hon Kuku said they projected average inflation of around 2 percent and said it would return to a 2.5 to 3 percent target range in the medium term.
“Now, in this new budget, the projected headline inflation in 2026 is between 3.5 and 4 percent, after several years of 5 to 6 percent. The finance minister tells us that core inflation will be between 2 and 3 percent. That may sound technical, but for ordinary families it simply means that prices are still rising faster than their incomes. Life will still be harder next year than it is today,” he said.
He said for our people these numbers are not theory.
“They see it in the price of a 10kg bag of rice. They see it in the cost of a litre of fuel and a return trip on the outboard motor. They see it when one hundred dollars only buys two or three basic items. Many urban families now struggle to afford even one proper meal a day. In the villages, more and more of our people need cash to survive, but there are very few ways to earn that cash,” he said.
Hon Kuku said the 2026 sadly do not respond to these struggles and it lacks clear strategy to lower the cost of living and to tackle poverty.
“ There is no set of concrete measures that directly target the daily expenses of low-income households. There is no timetable to lift families out of hand-to-mouth existence,” he said.
Hon Kuku said the government always preaches resilience while our people sink into deeper insecurity.
– Opposition Press
