FORMER Member of Parliament (MP) and private businessman Charles Dausabea has passed away on Sunday evening at the National Referral Hospital (NRH).
He was a former outspoken Malaita Ma’asina Forum (MMF) president and founder/CEO of the Indigenous Chamber of Commerce.
Dausabea, 59, has been ill for sometimes.
He was a trained police office after studying at the Honiara Technical Institute in the late 1970s.
He attended the Police Training School and then a police academy in Taiwan.
A brief background of his political career from Wikipedia.
He entered politics and sat on the Honiara Town Council in 1990, then entered the National Parliament as MP for East Honiara in a by-election on 19 December 1990, following the resignation of sitting MP Bartholomew Ulufa’alu. Prime Minister Solomon Mamaloni subsequently appointed him Chief Whip. He lost his seat to John Kauluae Maetia in the 1993 general election, but regained it in August 1997. After losing it to Simeon Bouro in the 2001 election, he regained it once more in April 2006.
On 5 May 2006, following the April riots which forced Prime Minister Snyder Rini to resign, the new Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare (now current PM) appointed Dausabea as Minister for Police and National Security.
At the time of his appointment, Dausabea had just been arrested, by “Australian and local police” acting within the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), whereby Australia and other Pacific countries provided essential services to the country after the 1999-to-2003 violence.
He was charged with having participated in the riots which had led to the fall of the Rini government.
On 9 June, Sogavare “was forced to replace [him] after a backlash from local church and community leaders, as well as foreign aid donors”. Dausabea remained in gaol during the entirety of his hypothetical time as government minister. The charges were eventually dropped, for lack of evidence.
On 5 December 2007, Sogavare appointed Dausabea as Minister for Public Service. The appointment was short-lived; the Sogavare government was brought down by a motion of no confidence on 20 December.
Dausabea lost his seat again in 2008 after being convicted of fraud and gaoled for eighteen months.
In 2012 he became the leader of the Malaita Ma’asina Forum (MMF).
Members of the public yesterday conveyed their condolences to the family and relatives of late Dausabea.
