but first the accounting!

A new regime is coming to the BSIP but first the accounting!

From a Honiara correspondent

Around now the Solomons people are going to the polls to elect their new parliamentary representatives and take another step along Indepen dence Road with the ministerial system instead of committees headed by chairmen. Who will be the ministers? Will they be the Chairmen, most of whom gave an account of their stewardship at the last meeting of Governing Council? Or, there may be a clean sweep with new comers taking over the reins! The debate, on the second annual review of the Sixth Development Plan, re vealed weaknesses and failures in the plan which may be reflected in the election results. Certainly, the people in the so-called neglected areas, which the plan hasn’t touched, will need convincing that a complete change isn’t the best plan.

The ’flu nearly chopped the debate short after only one member, Solo mon Mamaloni, had spoken. Known on the cocktail round as the Taiyo ’flu (because Solomon Taiyo skipjack fishermen returning from Japan were said to be the first to come down with it in March), it laid low two members who were prepared to speak on the first day and left a vacuum.

The chairman appeared about to put the question when George Pugeva leapt to his feet to ask for the debate to be adjourned to the next day.

At one stage only 12 out of 20 were in Govco, a bare quorum. Mama loni’s rational comment was that while the 6DP had raised the hopes of many, it had also disappointed some, because of the plan’s aim to develop the areas which would respond best. Known as “opportunity areas”, the term has now become a dirty one, because of repeated attacks on the plan’s neglect of people in areas difficult to develop—the “back ground people” as labelled by their particular champion, Johnathan Fifi’i from Kwaio on Malaita, the former leader of the post-war Marching, or Masina, Rule movement.

Willie Betu (Santa Ysabel) com plained of pockets of unrelated development which could not be linked and said the system of priorities was wrong because western ideology was not good for the Solomons, The people must develop in their own way and own time. He was also un happy that each project in the 6DP had to be approved by London. “We

should let them know that this country has a legislature quite capable of handling the grants-in-aid,” he said.

The review gave the following revised selected physical targets for 1973: Area under coconut (bearing trees only, and a guesstimate until

there is an agricultural statistics survey this year and in 1974) — 89,000 acres, increase of 4,500 over last year; annual copra output, 25,000 tons, increase of 4,200 tons; cocoa output, 100 tons, increase of 37 tons; rice output (milled), 3,000 tons, in crease of 2,000 tons; palm oil output,

Breast Feeders Not Wanted

20.000 tons in 1980; cattle stocks, 17.000 head, increase of 2,000; timber output (log equivalent), 8.800.000 cu ft, no change; fish out put, 7,500 tons, increase of 700 tons; bauxite, 1,200,000 tons in 1980; road network, main roads 190 miles, in crease of 19, and feeder roads 245 miles, increase of 22; educational enrolment, primary scheduled schools 20,000, increase of 800, primary registered schools 6,300, a slight drop of 74, secondary 1,434, increase of 113, technical/vocational 460, in crease of 14, tertiary (overseas) 98 actual compared with target of 99 last year; indigenous higher-level manpower stock degree 31 (26), diploma 142 (132), form IV/V 966 (719); employment (including ex patriates) 15,080 compared with 14,454 last year.

Grant-in-aid for 1971 amounted to $1,845 million, and that estimated for 1972 was $1,714 million. How ever, the results of two cyclones, the drop in copra prices and produc tion, the recession in the Japanese timber market and a high rate of imported inflation necessitated sup plementary grant-in-aid of $345,000.

Then, taking into account losses due to currency transactions, the total grant-in-aid for 1972 was $1,848 mil lion, For 1973, the Planning Unit estimated that a grant-in-aid of $1,878 million would be enough. This is more than the $1.7 million projected in the 6DP but the increase “is brought about by factors beyond con trol of the Protectorate”.

Father Thompson said low prices for copra and the people’s failure had affected the development plan as much as the cyclones. Copra earnings brought development rather than subsidies which could turn the people into “breast feeders” instead of food eaters. While extension services did much good work, the biggest effect came from building roads to markets. Sometimes, he thought it was better to halve the bigger departments and put the money into roads and shipping.

The litany of development through communications and marketing arrangements was chanted by most other speakers, encouraged to repeat it by the 6DP review’s backing of this often-quoted truism in Govco.

In the scattered Eastern Outer Islands, as Dr Dawea Taukalo pointed out, development was put back weeks or months simply by ships breaking down.

Mr Mariano Kelesi took the op portunity to report to Govco on long awaited moves to help the poorly staffed, sometimes unpopular, and generally struggling local government councils. As he said, there was plenty of evidence that they needed help, and that 17 councils for 160,000 people (excluding Honiara which has a town council) were too many.

Rate collection was slow and difficult,

People were dissatisfied, and councils did not have properly trained staff.

A review of local government, using an expert from Papua New Guinea to assist, has been going on and will continue in months to come. The Financial Secretary told Govco that he himself favoured a system of financing of local councils by giving a block grant to each for its over heads, and further grants based on the number of people who actually paid their council tax.

Mr Smith’s own introduction of the 6DP review was a way of wrapping up the debate. He said Govco could

Urban housing failure

in general be well pleased with the development it had initiated and seen carried out—ss per cent of the administrative sector had been com pleted, 35 per cent of the develop ment sector and 35 per cent of the social sector also. Few plans, he said, could record greater success at the half-way point.

Malaria eradication had been very successful so far, and the population was growing at more than 5,000 in a year, having reached 170,000 in mid-1972, a feature which could well need attention in the 7DP. En couraging progress had been reported with cattle, and the national herd was growing according to plan with local markets for fresh and frozen meat established. The first exports (to Nauru) had gone in March, One failure had been the provision of urban housing for the lowest in come groups. The Housing Authority had achieved much, but government needed more vigour in its approach, Mr Smith said.

Actually, the government has been charged with far more than lack of vigour by the architect manager of the authority who resigned early this year, Don Woolard. He is now on the faculty of architecture at the University of Queensland. In a fiercely partisan letter to Kakamora Reporter he accused the Public Works Depart ment of “actively engaging in attempt ing to destroy the success of the Housing Authority . . . with the full knowledge of the Governing Council”.

He outlined what he believed was necessary to finance and indepen dently establish the Authority so it could build housing for the lowest income group.

Mr Smith also said that the Solo mons would be admitted as a mem ber of the Asian Development Bank, government hoped, and the Chairman of Commerce and Industry Committee Gordon Siama had gone to attend the bank’s April meeting. Seeking a loan was more dignified than begging for a grant, and it was true that much pressure was put on the Solomons Government by those who gave aid to develop as they thought the Solo mons should, he said. “In this plan and in future plans, however, the council and the legislature which succeeds it must clearly insist on its right to decide for itself the pattern of development in the Solo mons,” Smith said.