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Letter from Honiara: authored by Robert Luke Iroga, Editor SBM

Another year is nearing its end once more as we are ready to close the blind on 2024 with 2025 is just a few sleeps away. This has been a very tough year that is defined by politics —as we held joint national elections for our national and provincial leaders except for the western provinces for the latter. Despite fiercely contested battles which saw half of the parliament being voted out, our leaders were able to put a government in place—resulting in Jeremiah Manele taking over from the old guard in Manasseh Sogavare as he took the helm of OUR Party & its coalition partners under the new look Government of National Unity and Transformation or GNUT.

Manele’s leadership was tested with a motion of no confidence, which was withdrawn in the final week of parliament in mid- December. Prior to the MONC, the whole house though agreed to pass GNUT’s budget for 2025 under the theme: “Accelerating Accountable and Transformative Investments: A Pathway Towards A Resilient and Sustainable Economy”.

On paper, the budget promises to deliver on the government’s transformative agenda promised by GNUT in its first year in power. That’s fully understandable as it is the wish of any government to produce the goods to its citizens.

In his own words Minister of Finance Manasseh Sogavare said the budget is to provide efficient and more quality services for our people.

However, going by history and the nature of a $4b budgets in the past few years—it would make little impact on the lives of our people given the amount of money with growing demands.

The government’s transformative agenda, therefore, must be real and not a sheer mantra to catch public attention. It must be genuine and seriously tangible that delivers real results and not just a pleasant ‘paper work’.

For an ordinary Solomon Islander, like George, who does not read and understands fancy policies he only cares when that is translated into action and delivers on the promised changes.

To him, transformative means, more jobs being created that enables his children to easily find a job in Honiara or elsewhere in the provinces. It could also mean better roads everywhere especially in the capital—there are no potholes and once he gets to any clinic or hospital, he gets good service from health workers and the medicine they prescribed to him or his family are available. To George, transformative could also mean his agricultural and fishery products have access to the domestic market or abroad. It also means that his mineral resources are properly dealt with where royalties are paid fully to the landowners and government taxes are lawfully paid by the investors. George would also like to see his government respects its tax laws and upholds integrity by not giving away tax-exemptions cheaply.  Transformative could also mean—police are reachable and when he makes a phone call for police’s help, they arrive on time. He also would like to see that those who are implicated in corruption claims are investigated and appropriate action is taken. Transformative to George, could also mean lower water and electricity tariffs and as a motorist he would like to see the price of fuel dropped. As an ordinary Solomon Islander, George would like to see his other fellow country men and women who are in the business sector have access to support their small businesses under the SME funding.

These are but just some of the examples of what a transformative agenda looks like for George. He does care about any expensive explanations but only concerns that services are delivered that change his life and that of his family. That’s all he wants not expensive words that deliver little or no benefits at all.

Happy new year all as we look forward for 2025.