Voters have the right to know

IN his reply to Mamaloni, Prime Minister Ulufa’alu points out that there was no Cabinet endorsement of the arms deal, a foreigner seemed to have unlimited authority to act as agent and that there was no contract or other documentation for the deal.

“As a long-serving and former Prime Minister, I am sure you know very well that these are certainly not normal proce dures in Solomon Islands under the consti tution.”

He says the Government has already paid out US$3.5 million while calls for

more cash are still being received. He also questions Mamaloni’s claim that Australia was unable to assist in providing arms.

“Again,” he writes, “the absence of the office file on this matter made it impossi ble to confirm this.”

The Prime Minister says the agent, Patrick Murphy, “confronted enormous difficulties in securing the necessary per mits from' the United States State Department” and that, as a result, the Solomon Islands New York mission “was dragged on to the scene.”

He adds; “Your assertion that greater damage had been done to our sovereignty

as a result of exposing the unprocedural way in which your government acted to procure the arms is nothing less than a per sonal opinion. Solomon Islanders wished you had recognised that responsibility a lit tle sooner and acted to stop the country’s economic slide.”

In a thinly veiled reference to the previ ous government’s record, Ulufa’alu writes: “No-one including your goodself should be left in any doubt about the Government’s determination to right the wrongs of the past. Cases of irregular prac tices (such as the arms procurement deal, the highly suspicious H2O fuel project) so synonymous with past administration will continue to be exposed.

Don’t you agree that the voters have the right to know? Of course, you do! ” B