17 Aug 2018

Watchdog disgusted at waste by Solomons MPs

3:37 pm on 17 August 2018

Transparency Solomon Islands says government departments are being stripped of funding to support the Constituency Development Fund which goes to each member of parliament.

Solomon Islands money

Photo: ppart/123RF

The watchdog group said this discretionary funding given to the MPs achieves little.

It said in the seven period, 2010 to 2016 the MPs were handed a total of $1.37 billion Solomon Islands dollars, (US$169,193,000).

Transparency spokesperson, Ruth Liloqula, said 20 percent of the fund was aid from Taiwan but the bulk of it was from the taxpayer.

She said typically this money was squandered.

"Now you see nurses home in disrepair and no longer any nursing there, clinics in a bad state or clinics closing, and ministries sitting down because they don't have any money to work with, and yet there's billions going through members of parliament that don't show very much, nothing much to see on the ground," she said.

Ruth Liloqula said Transparency demands the government take action to stop the waste.

Ruth Liloqula.

Ruth Liloqula. Photo: Twitter / Nicole Haley

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