MALAITA Ma’asina Forum technical team has criticised the Central Bank of Solomon Islands (CBSI)for its late announcement on the poor performance of the country’s economy it its annual report last month.
Head of technical team Martin Housanau said whilst they congratulated CBSI governor for the report and announcement he made about the poor performance of the economy, he said the message came out too late.
“Why wait till the last minute to announce that the economic performance of the country was bad?” Mr Housanau asked.
“What has the CBSI board and the economic reform unit of the ministry of finance did for the past years?
“MMF technical team has been vocal about issues of economic concern but none of these has been taken seriously by the CBSI or the government’s economic reforms unit.
“What are their advisers doing?” Mr Housanau asked.
He said the fact that the economy is performing badly clearly shows the government is running out of ideas to grow the economy.
Mr Housanau said MMF has been critical since 2012 about the Gold Ridge mine, marine resources (fish, Beche-de-mer etc..)Tourism, forestry etc but the issues raised have never been taken seriously by the government, which showed revenue earned never comes back into the economy.
“So the CBSI’s report clearly tells us that the government is running out of ideas on how to salvage the economy now that Gold Ridge is not performing and other sectors are also affected,” Mr Housanau added.
He stressed that the government’s neutral policy only resulted in the increase of inflation and does not open up opportunities to grow its small and medium size businesses who should be contributing more to the economy if given the opportunity.
He added that the economic reform held earlier this year was a waste of time because no platform or economic directive has come out from that meeting.
He said CBSI should have told the government long time ago that the economy is not performing to expectations.
Mr Housanau questioned why CBSI waited till the last hour to tell the government about the poor performance of the country’s economy.
He urged the CBSI board to tell this country what economic strategies are available to grow the economy as the .9% growth prediction for the year is a good indication that the current government is performing really badly.
Mr Housanau added that if there are $400 million liquidity available within the commercial banks, why stick to neutralising the economy.
He said if the CBSI board and the government are not competitive, they should just resign and put people who can smartly bring about positive change to grow the economy.
By DANIEL NAMOSUAIA
