Ivor Hanson




 
That corruption continues to surface in the Solomon Islands cannot be regarded a newsflash.
  Consider that: Current Member of Parliament Mark Kemakeza stands indicted on two counts of corruption charges; former MP Clement Rojumana and former chairman of the Citizen Commission John Maetia are currently on trial, facing 25 counts each of official corruption for allegedly selling Solomons passports and citizenships; lingering questions continue to dog the whereabouts of relief funds for villages struck by the 2007 tsunami; charges of misuse of government monies in the Ministry of Aviation are asserted on the floor of Parliament at the close of 2009.
  It’s against this backdrop that this past September the Solomon Islands government of Prime Minister Derek Sikua introduced a wide-ranging anti-corruption programme that features such measures as—
  • signing the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC);
  • establishing an Independent Commission Against Corruption (or ICAC) and a National Audit Office;
  • a code of conduct for public servants; and
  • conducting five National Consultative Workshops on corruption, a first for the Solomon Islands, if not the South Pacific.
  To help implement and coordinate this agenda, the government also established an Anti-Corruption Taskforce that includes such myriad and major players as the Ministry of Public Service, the Ministry of Finance, the Accountant General, the Ombudsman’s Office, the Leadership Code Commission, the Law Reform Commission, the Attorney General Chambers, the Director of Public Prosecution, Transparency Solomon Islands and the Solomon Islands Chamber of Commerce & Industry.
  “Some might say we are being overly ambitious with all that we are doing, and all that we are proposing,” says John Keniapisia, who, as Special Secretary to the Prime Minister, serves as the Sikua government’s point man on corruption. “But we are determined to put our house in order.”
  Keniapisia believes that such a ‘Top Down’ approach, one emanating from the Prime Minister’s office, is key to success in the Solomon Islands, characterising ‘Bottom Up’ or grassroots efforts as “very difficult”, hampered as they are by a lack of resources and a lack of awareness.
  Leading by example, therefore, fills a necessary vacuum, with Keniapsia favouring the establishing of a government agency specifically tasked with combatting corruption, and pointing to a recent RAMSI-funded feasibility study by two overseas consultants with experience of Australia’s New South Wales ICAC that also advocates such a move.
  But money is tight and with Keniapisia putting a dollar figure of between SB$2 million and SB$3 million on such measures, the Solomons government, if not such donors as RAMSI and the European Union, will be hard-pressed to come up with the necessary funding.
  (A case in point: in late December, the Solomons’ Ministry of Finance still owed the Solomon Islands Postal Corporation SB$600 for its mailbox rental for 2008 and 2009.)
  Moreover, money is missing. When Prime Minister Sikua addressed the second National Consultative workshop in Honiara, he declared that between 2001 and 2007, SB$430 million was lost, unaccounted for, or mis-spent. 
  So lots to recover, and not just funds: the restored reputation of the Solomons government and Parliament would entice investors.
  “Anti-corruption measures are a tool for economic growth,” stresses Calvin Ziru, the Chief Executive Officer of the Solomon Islands Chamber of Commerce & Industry. “Right now, honest FDIs (foreign direct investment companies) avoid this country altogether.”
  But one has to wonder whether a Parliament that kicks the debate of the much-anticipated Political Party Integrity Bill down the road by four-and-a-half months (until the middle of March 2010) is truly ready to take on an anti-corruption reform agenda.
  As Bob Pollard, head of Transparency Solomon Islands, points out: “The key driver to corruption in the Solomon Islands is politicians. It comes down to how they behave, what they do, what they ignore.”
  Still, Pollard is heartened by how now at public meetings corruption easily comes up, describing it as being on everyone’s radar, and the beginnings of a groundswell demand for accountability and transparency.
  Such apparent progress is welcomed by Joses Tuhanuku, a former MP and Leader of the Opposition, Transparency Solomon Islands veteran, long-time trade unionist, and campaigner against corruption.
  Describing the government’s taskforce as “almost a waste of time”, he believes the ‘Top Down’ approach is just not enough.
  “You can’t leave a job like this to the politicians and the public servants, they will just look after themselves,” Tuhanuku says.
  “You have to have pressure from outside, from the youth movement, the women’s movement, the trade unions and the Chamber of Commerce. They are an essential force.”
  Tuhanuku also notes that while laws punishing corruption have been on the books for thirty years, they have not been enforced.
  Therefore, rather than focusing on crafting new penal legislation, he favours bolstering the work of the Ombudsman’s Office and the Auditor-General’s office.