THE Ministry of Forestry must do the proper thing to hand the file of hard evidence documents pointing to unaccounted government revenue of more than $500 Million in the logging industry from the period of 2008-2013, to be submitted to the police for criminal investigation and possible prosecution.
Now with the public knowledge and exposure of the existence of the file of documents, responsible investigating and prosecuting authorities must insist that the documents be released to them for investigation.
Transparency Solomon Islands Acting Executive Officer, Edward Ronia said that TSI is concerned that the documents exposed by the former Minister of Forestry, Bodo Dettke could easily be locked away in its state of secrecy by people who are benefiting from corruption if the documents remain at the Ministry of Forestry.
He added that the evidence of documents exposed by Mr Dettke must be handed to the police for investigation immediately.
This is crucial for shedding light into the alleged corruption network situation in the country between politicians, government officials and logging companies that eats away the fabric of our society.
“Corruption is a painful reality that hits hard on the innocent ordinary citizen of this nation who continues to suffer from poor public services.”
If the Democratic Coalition for Change Government (DCCG) is serious about their policy ‘to fight corruption head-on’, they should do the right thing by ordering these evidences to be submitted to the Police for investigation,” Mr Ronia stated.
“Also TSI wants to call on leaders who have insight into many other corruption dealings that are costing this nation dearly to be champions and exposed them with good public interest intention.”
“It is disheartening to see leaders who have inside knowledge on fishy dealings to only expose them for political reasoning rather than exposing them for the sake of fighting corruption, the real issue of concern of our nation”.
– TSI Communication
