The Malaita provincial government is issuing a strong warning to foreign owned businesses operating illegal in the province.
Malaita provincial secretary Jackson Gege told the Solomon Star in Auki the provincial government is closely monitoring illegal business operations in the province.
Mr. Gege said the provincial government is aware of some Asian business men who are operating businesses illegally in the province without a valid business license. Therefore he had already issued warning letters to some of them to halt their operations.
“We are aware of the fact that some Asian owned businesses are currently operating in Malaita without getting a valid business license from the provincial government. And we have already them issued warning letters to some of them.
“We understand that some businesses have already submitted their applications so that the province can consider their application therefore they should wait for approval before they can run business here in Malaita,” he added.
For a business to operate in Malaita, the first thing is that it must have a valid business license from the province and must satisfy other business requirements from the national government, he explained.
But some of the newly established businesses which are owned by Asians have failed to comply with the Malaita provincial government regulations by just operating without any legal licenses.
He said the decision to approve and issuing out of new provincial business licenses is the duty of the executive which is said is not a one man decision like some cases in the past.
With that he said the Malaita provincial government wants to see all the businesses operating illegally in Malaita to submit their business licence applications for the executive to consider.
“For those who have already submitted their business license application, they have to wait for the result to see if the province allows them to run business here in Malaita or not.”
He said the current Malaita government wants to see some honesty and transparency in the way the investors conduct their businesses in Malaita.
“The provincial government will not tolerate any illegal business operations in Auki and Malaita as a whole.”
By BIRIAU WILSON SAENI
In Auki
