Recent events in and around the Ports Authority have caused confusion, anger, misallocation of resources and waste of public money, and have given rise to allegations of bribery and corruption at all levels from wharf workers to Cabinet Ministers (all of whom are indigenous people, we can note). Like many ports authorities in the Pacific and elsewhere, SIPA has had a patchy history of physical and financial efficiency, and has frequently been criticised for low-level corruption in cargo handling and other ports services, followed by periods of improvement. Over many years it has been a stronghold of organised labour, with sometimes close relations with other regional ports workforces.
With the recruitment last year of a new General Manager (quickly retitled Chief Executive Officer), changes began to be put in hand that went far beyond the scope of the Ports Act or the intentions of the present (or any other) Solomon Islands Government. The CEO’s assessment apparently was that SIG had no real policies or plans in place for social and economic development at national or sector level: politics at national and local levels was about staying in office and getting rich, and support for lucrative additions to the scope and nature of SIPA operations could be obtained by cash payments to decision-makers (sometimes called bribes) and promises of a new social and economic order for ordinary people. The Board of SIPA accepted this and the CEO began implementing the changes.
The outcome has been disruptive and damaging to Solomon Islands’ reputation as a trading nation and destination for investment, to the standing of the national government, and to the community of state-owned and privately-owned enterprises that drives the Solomon Islands economy. The situation is full of rumour and blame-laying allegations. Transparency and accountability are conspicuously absent.
Transparency Solomon Islands calls for a fully competent independent inquiry into these events and related issues, as a basis for a set of coherent policies that can command general public and political support. Meanwhile, recent changes to the scope and nature of SIPA’s activities should be suspended, and further changes prohibited pending the outcome of the inquiry.
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