Dear Editor – The 9th parliament naturally died Monday this week and as we prepare to elect the 10th, it is always good to reflect on the 9th parliament so that their strength and weaknesses can be used to decide who to elect this time round.
Well, the 9th parliament is a very interesting house as three quarters of the house was made up of new politicians.
May be because of this, they hardly debate in parliamentary meetings.
It was an interesting house as NCRA reigned for four years but under two prime ministers.
In the last four years funds for constituencies under the control of the MPs increased dualistically without a single development in the constituencies.
For instance, each MP controlled $8 million per year multiplied by 4 years equals to $32 million per constituency.
With funds like this available and yet no development simply signalled a wrong side of the coin.
Some very serious bills were also passed yet people were silent about it.
Some of these are the Prime Minister’s Pension Bill, Family Protection Bill,MP’s $400,000 terminal grant etc
During the last four years too, MPs came to parliament with nothing, now most of them accumulated huge properties in Honiara and abroad.
Also we have witnessed a lot of ground breaking for the so called economic centres,yet nothing has been done.
Goods tax has been on the rise therefore people are suffering from paying for more to surive.
We also learned that a good number of MPs were given the $3million ship grants and yet boats could not be seen.
So from the few instances mentioned here, what are we going to do this time round?
The future of our nation is with us and as we about to elect the 10th parliament, do we have to cast them based on the $50 or carton of noodle offered to us during the devil’s night?
The ball is in our court again. Make sure we play it proper and safe this time round.
John Aonima
White River
