THE Parliamentary Opposition Group is calling on the Prime Minister to reconsider certain allocation of ministerial portfolios within his Cabinet.
This is after the swearing in of 21 out of the 24 ministerial portfolios’ on Monday.
While the Opposition Group congratulated the appointments and announcement of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet ministers, the Opposition was concerned on certain portfolios.
In a statement yesterday, the Opposition Office questioned the rationality behind the choice of Bodo Dettke as Minister for Forestry and Research.
“Dettke’s appointment to that particular ministry does not reflect positively on the decision the Prime Minister made as he knew very well his minister’s interests in the logging industry. It is a conflict of interest,” the statement said.
“This already reflects negatively on the current Government’s decisions.”
Meanwhile, the Opposition was also concerned with a statement in the media this week quoting Member of Parliament for Aoke Langalanga Mathew Wale’s public declaration saying that he would be the next Finance Minister.
The statement said although the Opposition understands that Mr Wale is yet to be formally sworn in; the Prime Minister should be mindful about his Finance Minister’s appointment.
“Wale is currently under investigations for serious allegations of fraud and bribery with St Barbara and he still owes an explanation to the people of this country especially our people from Guadalcanal.
“Therefore, he should be sidelined until he is cleared off these allegations,” it said.
The statement said the Prime Minister appointing Mr Wale to Finance would only bring a bad reputation to his Government as far as investors, donors and the international community is concerned.
“While Opposition is concerned on these particular choices for the ministerial portfolios, they would be keeping a close eye on the other ministers to make sure they perform to what is expected of them.”
