The National Development Strategy (NDS) has been criticised by the Leader of Opposition Hon Matthew Wale describing it as too broad and vague.
Speaking during the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Hearing, Hon Wale told officials from the Ministry of National Planning and Development Coordination that the NDS needs to be reviewed to be more simple and focused.
“It looks good on paper and we could just easily add anything to it and pat ourselves on the back and say we have achieved something,” he said.
Hon Wale said what the government should be doing is to focus on development strategies that are achievable.
“For instance, the NDS should focus that in the next 20 years Solomon Islands should become a middle income country,” he said.
The Opposition Leader said it is not a rocket scientist concept.
“We know what a middle income country looks like, the kind of economy and society, its security architecture, employment levels, what kind of growth in GDP and how we measure that growth,” Hon Wale said.
He said even when CBSI reports an economic growth of 3%, it is only felt by a few, yet ordinary citizens are still struggling.
“That’s not the kind of growth we want. There has to be some kind of economical and social justice built into how we measure economic growth,” Hon Wale said.
The Opposition Leader said if we are aiming to be a middle-income country in 20 years we should be targeting economic growth by 10% lowest 7%.
Hon Wale said by then they know the country is creating sufficient number of quality jobs that pays decent incomes for our people.
“Sadly, the current pathway we are taking with the NDS will remain a status quo. We will continue to mislead our people with fancy development rhetoric that will not make any difference,” he said.
The Opposition Leader said real growth is driven by genuine development and actual investment.
Hon Wale has also encouraged the ministry to reintroduce traffic light reporting.
This he said is important to track and report on implementation on each line ministry.
The ministry admits traffic light reporting had been unavailable since 2018 resulting in a lot of reporting gaps and they are looking to reintroduce it.
– Opposition Press
