Dear Editor – In this article I wish to refer to the answer to my letter to the editor by the Minister of the Ministry of Public Service.
My article appeared on the Solomon Star on Thursday 15th June 2017.
First of all, I wish to point out that I did not retire from the government as stated by the minister, but I was asked including some other public officers in 1986 to voluntarily leave the government at that time was having problem of cash flow.
The fact that some of us have reached the final level of the position that we were holding and so were asked to leave and the government was quite prepared to give us some money before we left.
Now, for this particular issue, my question still stands and that is, “Under what provisions in the Constitution as the minister of the Ministry of Public Service have the power to suspend the PS of the Ministry of Rural Development?”
The answer that was given by the Minister responsible was not good enough.
Now, the power to deal with the permanent secretaries is rested in the public service commission with concurrence of the Prime Minister and now the Minister of Public Service and the Ministry of Public Service.
As I have pointed out, that the public Officers can only be dealt with by the public Service Commission, legal service commission and the police and prison service commission and no one else.
These three commissions are independent and whatever decisions they make when dealing with public officers is final and they do not rely on any other persons advice including the Ministers.
In private companies, the decision of a manager is final but in the government is quite different removing, appointing, promoting of public officers are dealth with the Commissioners that are established under the constitution and not by a minister or any one else.
Politicians have no part in dealing with the public officers.
The same PS has been mistreated in the past and she is treated the same way again.
You may say that it is not my responsibility to comment on such issue.
We’ll “the government is by the people and therefore it is for the people.”
And under section 12 of the constitution, I have the right to express my views on any issues at all without any interferences of any body.
I have asked the PS herself and she told me the reason was.
I’m not related to her but I felt sorry of how she has been treated.
If what she explained was true, then what has taken against her was a personal matter and so for a good governance and respect for women, she must be given her post back.
As for the land issue, the ministry of lands must quickly deal with the land dealing here at Lambete, Munda land plots because some 20 years ago nothing is happening on them until today.
In 2008, there was a report produced by the office of the Auditor General which revealed that sales of government houses at Lambete and the allocations of some pieces of land have been described as illegal and the Ministry is doing nothing about it until today.
Now, the reason for mentioning the couple who claimed to have bought a piece of land at Lambete was because how can the ministry of lands sold the piece of land in 2010 as confirmed by the minister of public service, when the Western province had already built its houses on that piece of land?
How can that be? How can the ministry of land ordered the Western province to pull down its buildings because a private individual had bought that piece of land?
How can that be?
May I ask the ministry of land to quickly deal with these issues.
Romano Nongebatu
Munda
