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Transparency Solomon Island (TSI) has been condemned for its ongoing barrage of misleading and doomed criticisms on the Government on the covid-19 Economic Stimulus Package.
Last week, the so called “champion of transparency” published an entirely misleading news item in the local newspapers claiming the Government is discriminating against Opposition and Independent MPs in its distribution of the ESP allocation to constituencies.
A statement from the ESP Oversight and Implementation Committee said the assumption is not true since the support equally benefited all 50 Constituencies.
“The release of the $600,000.00 to Constituencies does not in any manner discriminate against any MPs from Opposition and Independent groups,” the statement said.
The release of payments, however, depends very much on each constituencies complying with the standard requirement of submissions to the committee detailing the breakdown of how the $600,000 will be expended. Upon receiving the breakdown of expenditure, and approved by the committee, the MPs will be given the offer letter to which they will be required to counter sign. Most of the MPs in the Government side were paid first just because they submitted their expenditure breakdown and their signed offer letters earlier.
Some Government MPs still do not receive payment transfers together with opposition MPs at the time when the Opposition Leader first raised the issue.
“If TSI have taken time to verify their information, they should be aware that by the time they write and publish their news item, most Opposition MPs were paid their $600,000.00 constituency allocations,” the statement said.
Worst on their part, TSI failed miserably to understand and acknowledge of the importance of the Stimulus package to our local agriculture, fisheries, forestry and tourism sectors during these difficult times to do business.
“The whole publication by TSI is full of misinformation and misconceptions and only shows the little knowledge TSI have on important matters affecting the country and they should take time to seek proper information and research before publishing something that is not true,” the statement added.
The statement reiterated that the ignorance on the part of TSI only shows that it is an organization that needs to understand its role and it needs to be operated by people that have sound knowledge on national issues before going out on rampage with false information.
The ESP Committee encouraged to TSI to consult the ESP team – OSC Chairman or ESP Secretariat and members to get the facts right before going out to media.
“They are expected to act like grown up people. They are only confusing the public whilst we are working very hard to salvage the economy of this nation,” the statement added.
ENDS////
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