After a relatively well organised and peaceful day of voting in Solomon Islands yesterday, the electoral commission is working with donor partners to safely transport ballot boxes from polling stations all over the country to centrally located counting venues.

It is a massive exercise with more than 200 New Zealand Defence Force personnel providing logistical support across the 29,000 sq km sprawling island chain to ensure that those who want to vote have an opportunity to do so.

Chief Electoral Officer Jasper Anisi said there were some preliminary processes to be completed once all ballot boxes were accounted for but he expected counting to begin today.

“Mostly it will be verification of ballot boxes and ballot papers from the polling stations. But once verification is done then counting will automatically start,” Anisi said.

The big issues
So what were the big election issues for Solomon Islanders at the polls yesterday?

A lack of government services, poor infrastructure development and the establishment of diplomatic ties with China are some of the things voters in the capital Honiara told RNZ Pacific they cared about.

Timothy Vai said he was unhappy with the former government’s decision to cut ties with Taiwan in 2019 so it could establish ties with China.

“I want to see a change. My aim in voting now is for a new government. Because we are a democratic country but we shifted [diplomatic ties] to a communist country,” Vai said.

Another voter, Minnie Kasi, wanted leaders to do more for herself and her community.

“My voting experience was good. I came to vote for the right person,” she said.

“Over the past four years I did not see anything delivered by the person I voted for last time which is why I am voting for the person I voted for today.”

Lack of government services
While Ethel Manera felt there was a lack of development and basic government services in her constitutency.

“Some infrastructure and sanitation [projects] they have not developed and they are still yet to develop and that is what I see should be developed in our country,” Manera said.

This is the first time the country has conducted simultaneous voting for national and provincial election candidates.

Anisi has said they would start by tallying the provincial results.

“The provincial results we count in wards,” he said.

“So wards have smaller numbers compared to the constituencies so you need to count all the wards in order to get the constituency number.”

Some visiting political experts and local commentators in Honiara think delaying the announcement of the national election results might pose a security risk if it takes too long and voters grow impatient.

But others say it is a good strategy because historically supporters of national candidates who win hold noisy public celebrations and if this is done first it could disrupt the counting of provincial results.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Papua New Guinea’s Service Improvement Programme worth more than K1 billion (NZ$440 million) has become a major cash cow for “irresponsible” leaders, says the monitoring agency.

In the past decade, the Provincial and District Services Improvement Programme has delivered much but has not achieved what it set out to deliver — vital government services like schools, health centres, roads and bridges, jetties to the rural population.

Its overseer, the Department of Implementation and Rural Development has now become concerned at the apparent abuse and misuse of public funds by political leaders and their district administration.

The DIRD now reports that a large amount of money has been spent on “ghost projects” which are not physically completed on the ground and cannot be monitored due to financial constraints among others.

Many are half complete health centres or abandoned school classrooms or teachers houses, says DIRD secretary Aihi Vaki.

“Not all of it has been properly acquitted kina by kina. Even the amount of money allocated by the Treasury Department to each district is unknown to the DIRD.”

However, Finance Secretary Dr Ken Ngangan has defended the transfer of the country’s service improvement budgets to the provinces and the remittance of funds by Finance Department as a policy initiative approved by Cabinet.

‘A misunderstanding’
“There is a misunderstanding of the legal framework for budget and expenditure management under which all public and statutory bodies operate,” he said.

“As reported, NEC Decision 240/2018 provided for DIRD oversight of PSIP/DSIP funds management and monitoring.

“Accordingly, the NEC decision was effectively put into effect through the 2019 National Budget process, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, PFMA and Appropriations Act, with PSIP/DSIP funds allocated to DIRD in the National Budget for management and monitoring.”

However, a concerned Vaki has termed it as an “open secret” known to the leaders and their district public servants.

He said the DSIP and PSIP acquittals were compounded by lack of surveillance and monitoring by his department staff due to lack of funding from the National Government despite request after request.

He said there were many issues encountered, some of which were reports of proposed ghost projects paid out and finding their way into the acquittal papers to DIRD.

District Services Improvement Project (DSIP) grants amounts to K960 million a year while provincial (PSIP) grants are K220 million a year. The total bill in a year disbursed by Treasury to MPs is K1.18 billion.

“Due to the increase in districts last year, this year’s allocation will increase to a whopping K1.239 billion,” Vaki said.

Concerns amplified
His concerns were amplified in 2021 by now sidelined Immigration Minister Bryan Kramer on multi-million kina projects in rural districts.

Kramer had said that projects were designed, pre-fabricated, and allegedly constructed according to the acquittals but in reality, there was nothing to show for on the ground.

Kramer, who was then Justice Minister, had also claimed that billions of kina were also lost to undelivered state contracts every year and investigations into some of these incomplete projects were made by the State Audit and Recovery Taskforce (SART) initiated by the Department of Justice and Attorney-General working with nine other state agencies with more than K25 million already recovered.

The current status of the SART since then is not known. Nor how much more they may have been able to identify or recover following the last update provided by Kramer.

These were examples of abuse and misuse on a national level, but on the DDA level, it was alleged that millions may have been squandered through unscrupulous and dubious project deals in rural areas.

Vaki was forthright in his revelation, adding that while 60 percent of MPs had made an attempt to acquit their funding, 40 percent had never provided evidence of how they had spent public money in their districts.

Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz