Dear Editor – Counters 4 & 5 at the Treasury are no longer carrying out any of the other services they normally provide as they succumbed to the extraordinary pressure of SICHE/SINU students’ demand to resolve academic transcripts issues.
Relevant responsible authorities in Finance should go down there and rescue the situation now in danger of further deteriorating.
There have been situations where tempers nearly flared between elements of the crowd and Treasury staff.
I have been unsuccessfully trying to pay my passport fee since Monday 27/01/’1 through Counter NO 4.
This morning (Thursday 30/01/’14) as I was the second in line in a growing queue I assisted in forming since 7AM, I felt pleased with myself believing that finally I was going to make it.
The public notice indicated the Counter would open at 8.30 AM. It was 8.15 when the Counter staff entered the Treasury building to proceed to their offices.
It was 8.45AM that the Counter 4 officer made the dreaded announcement that the system was down.
When asked when the system will be up again, the reply was that he did not know as it was based somewhere else out of their control.
The advice was to come again and hope that the system would be up by then. I could not believe what I was hearing and nearly fainted.
By then, the crowd was milling.
With the compound rather restrictive, the likelihood of things getting out of hand is real if Ministry of Finance authorities are unaware of the daily over-crowding situation around the Treasury Counters for the next while, and do something about improving it.
As for me, my simple need to make payment to the government has still not been serviced.
What a shame!!
Gabriel Taloikwai
Honiara
