FRC COMMITTEE HEARING ON RAMSI
Wednesday 17 September 2008
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Prayers were said by Celsus Talifilu.
Mr Chairman: Hon. Members of the Foreign Relations Committee, Paul Kelly, RAMSI Development Coordinator, Dawn Casey, Program Director, Machinery of Government, Paul Griffiths, Program Director, Law and Justice, Jeff Byrne, Tam Leader, Financial Management Strengthening Program, stakeholders and members of Public, welcome to today’s hearing.
Before we proceed I wish to explain to those who might have been expecting a hearing this morning why there was none. The Prime Minister and his officials were previously scheduled to appear before this Committee this morning. Due to other commitments the Honorable Prime Minister was unable to appear and the Committee was requested to postpone today’s hearing to tomorrow.
For the sake of public clarity, while this Committee understands the high demands on the Prime Minister’s Office and is more than happy to accommodate this request, I wish to remind all Ministries and public officers who are scheduled to appear to this Committee that the Committee is not a government body but is an independent parliamentary body. We have our own tight schedule and this Committee has certain powers, privileges and immunities that it can resort to if delays in hearings appear to interfere with the Committee’s schedule. Please, take note and be reminded accordingly.
That said, let us move onto this afternoon’s hearing. Firstly, on behalf of the Committee I would like to thank you for availing yourself and to attend to this very important inquiry into and review of matters relating to the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). The Foreign Relations Committee is pleased to have this opportunity to hear from the three pillars of the RAMSI Development Program and appreciates the opportunity to be further clarified on issues relating to the operations of RAMSI in this country.
Again, I wish to remind witnesses that what you say in this hearing is protected by parliamentary privilege and cannot be later used against you in any legal proceedings whatsoever. Because of the strength of this privilege this Committee expects all witnesses to ensure that their answers are truthful and confined to matters relevant to the terms of reference and questions asked by members.
Please be advised that this hearing is being recorded by One News to be replayed tonight and the hearing is also being broadcast live by SIBC. We will now proceed with the hearing. We will first hear a 15 to 20 minutes from the witness and after that this Committee will ask questions of the witnesses.
May I now ask the witnesses to please state your names for the record and please proceed with your opening statement?
Mr Paul. Kelly: Thank you Mr Chairman, Committee Members. My name is Paul Kelly, I’m the RAMSI Development Coordinator. I am joined this afternoon by Mr Jeff Byrne, the pillar head of the economic governance pillar, Paul Griffiths, who is responsible for the Law and Justice and Dawn Casey, who is responsible for the machinery of government.
What I’d like to do is make a few opening remarks and then provide an opportunity for each of the pillar heads themselves to talk briefly about their programs.
I think it is best probably to start by explaining where the development pillars fit within the RAMSI structure, and I refer to this chart we provided yesterday. Of course, there are three broad components of RAMSI, the Combined Task force in the military component, the Participating Police Force, and then the civilian government programs, and within the civilian development programs are the three pillars as I have just said; economic governance and growth, law and justice, and the machinery of government. My role as development coordinator is to oversee RAMSI’s development activities.
Since RAMSI’s deployment in 2003 it’s overarching goals have been for a peaceful, well governed and prosperous Solomon Islands. The composition of RAMSI and the integration of security and development into the one mission, reflects the reality that there is no development without security but equally there is no security without development.
Alongside efforts to maintain security and build the capacity of the Solomon Islands Police Force, RAMSI Development Programs are focused on rebuilding institutions and functions in Solomon Islands that are effective, affordable and have the capacity to being sustained by the Solomon Islands.
For development programs largely working within institutions based in Honiara, this includes the Justice and Corrections Systems, the Public Service, accountability institutions such as the Auditor General and also including Parliament. This work is not readily visible or is not easily understood but it is essential to RAMSI’s mission.
Yesterday, we noted that there is still much to be done but there have been some very good achievements, and indeed some evidence of capacity development. Pillar heads will also have an opportunity to present in more detail about these achievements, but some include continued growth in domestic revenue collection, which increased in 2007 by around 30% to over a billion dollars. There has been reduced customs clearance processing time from 24 to 8 hrs. RAMSI programs have been able to support the Justice System to conclude over 30 trials relating to the tension period, and all legal institutions are now headed by Solomon Islanders. The Office of the Auditor General is improving accountability of government activities by clearing backlogs of audits of national accounts and its audits are being scrutinized by the Public Accounts Committee of this Parliament.
Mr Chairman, I’m also conscious that the session of the day has been broadcast and that people in the provinces listening in might ask, ‘so what does this all mean for the ordinary Solomon Islander? This is just to provide an example of how it all comes together and why we are doing this.
Solomon Islands is now able to again demonstrate that it’s capable of maintaining an effective justice system and this provides the environment that its business is stability and a confidence to invest and in turn this creates jobs. People’s jobs have more money and spend it in the markets and shops. Growing economic activity allows the government to collect more revenue and if more money the government can develop and implement its own programs. And of course, this then reduces independence on external sources of funding and is sustainable because it is owned and led by the Solomon Islands Government.
We touched yesterday on approaches to a RAMSI exit strategy. Capacity development and institutional strengthening is central to conclusion of RAMSI’s mission. Capacity development is the process of developing competencies and capabilities in individuals, workgroups and organizations, which will lead to sustained and self-generated performance improvement.
RAMSI has supported internationally renowned specialists in the field of capacity development to assist our efforts and to provide recommendations to improve our effectiveness. It is worth noting, I think that the area where most progress is being made is those areas where Solomon Islanders themselves recognize the need for change.
We also need, of course, to be able to measure our progress towards the completion of RAMSI’s mission. RAMSI is committed to performance measurement and improvement. RAMSI has a robust performance framework to enable it to assess its work against public ……….. objectives. The performance framework is a key component of RAMSI ensuring continual monitoring evaluations, and is being designed to fit the Solomon Islands Government systems. RAMSI’s performance measurement efforts are guided by performances in working groups, which includes representation for both RAMSI as well as Solomon Islands Government officials.
The future direction of RAMSI, as we said yesterday, would be shaped by the Partnership Framework, which with the SIG will promote a shared understanding of goals and objectives, a commitment to regular and effective dialogue and a genuine partnership with ………...
With those introductory remarks I’ll ask in turn the pillar heads to provide some briefing into their programs.
Jeff Byrne: My name is Jeff Byrne, and I’m the team leader for the Financial Management Strengthening Program. The economic pillar of RAMSI has two main elements: One is the economic governance element, and I’ll talk about that in a bit more detail in a minute, and the other is economic growth, which is more conventional development type of expenditure such as infrastructure and investment for roads etc.
The economic governance aspect is set on providing support for the Ministry of Treasury and Finance and almost everyone within the team works within that Ministry.
The overall objective for the program is to seek to be able to SIG to operate and a sustainable and stable budget and have the capacity to implement and maintain policies which support sustainable economic growth for the country. In simple terms, we are focused on supporting good financial management and so things like fair taxes, proper and affordable expenditure by the government and access to promote growth of the Solomon Islands economy, which will create jobs and opportunities. For example, laws and management arrangements that encourage overseas investors and local people to start and grow their businesses and provide good local services.
Good economic governance matters for several reasons. The government needs stable finances to fund its administration and to deliver its programs. The country needs growth to secure a better future for all Solomon Islanders. The government needs to also demonstrate it is responsible to secure donor support for joint programs and to give both local and international businesses confidence.
Most of the economic governance teams are in advisory positions a small number, in fact I’m one of the small number, are in line positions within the Ministry. The team is spread fairly broadly across the functions that the Ministry performs. The areas include the Economic Reform Unit, which is a major policy advisory unit for Finance but also the government more generally. The Budget Unit, which is obviously responsible for developing the Solomon Islands Government budget each year. The Treasury, which deals with government cash management and payments. Debt management, this is about local debt but I think more significantly about managing the significant international debt which Solomon Islands has built up in the past. Inland Revenue and Customs, are the two primary revenue raising arms of the government. Just one note here, the role of advisors within the Ministry is very much to support the Ministry. They are not decision makers, but they are supporting Solomon Islands as a government and also the Minister, the Permanent Secretary and other senior management within the department in making good decisions.
The early focus of economic governance was very much around stabilizing what were very poor financial positions of the government, post the tensions. There was also very low capacity at that time for the Ministry to manage its own affairs. So the focus initially was on providing fairly hands-on operational support. But now the focus is moving much more strongly towards building local capacity. And as Paul said this is at three levels; the capacity of individuals, the capacity of systems such as a payroll system or a payment system, which the government wants to use but also the capacity of the Ministry of Finance as a well-functioning agency as a key player in providing broad government services.
I think economic governance has had some notable successes over the period we have been in operation. The first one, and I think, now we take it for granted but a few years ago this wasn’t the case, is to stabilize the Solomon Islands Government financial position. We now have fully funded budgets, we have strong revenue growth, we have government able to fully fund its programs and the SIG is now making all of its debt repayments against normal schedules. That is particularly important for international debt.
Secondly, there has been strong overall economic growth. I’m not saying that advisors are completely responsible for economic growth of the Solomon Islands’ economy. However, advisors supporting a ministry and the ministry showing responsible financial management is certainly a key ingredient in people having confidence to operate businesses and go about their normal activities.
More recently, a medium term fiscal strategy has been developed within the Ministry, which the government has now adopted as providing a broad plan of how to go about meeting future challenges in relation to paying its way and promoting growth. There has also been, I think, a general major strengthening of the capacity of the Ministry through recruitment, system development and management development. I think particularly here middle management development over the last 12 is really something that has moved forward. I think initially we started off within the Ministry recruiting at the base level but now some of those people are moving through to middle management levels and hopefully in the future we will move through to taking strong leadership positions within government.
The economic governance program is currently developing a further stage for the next three years. The general approach is expected to be unchanged but with an even stronger focus on capacity building. I think there is a particular focus here on financial management. I think the aim is for the Ministry of Finance to be, if you like, a centre of excellence for financial management but also spreading that expertise to other line ministries. It is also about setting performance targets and monitoring against them. We’ve done that in the past but I think that is becoming even more of a focus.
But the general focus continues to be to make the Solomon Islands and its government financially strong so that the future is bright for government and also for Solomon Islands more generally. Thank you.
Paul Griffiths: Thank you Paul Griffiths from the RAMSI Law and Justice Program. Honorable Chairman and members, I’m grateful for the opportunity to speak about the progress that is being made by the Solomon Islands Government in the Law and Justice Sector supported by our program and also some other donors in the sector.
The RAMSI Law and Justice Program is co-located in the headquarters of the two ministries that we support - the Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs, and the Ministry of Police, National Security and Correctional Services in Kalala House, behind the High Court. The program supports the two ministries and also eight (8) agencies across the sector - the Attorney’s Chambers, the High Court, the Magistrates Court, the Law Reform Commission, the DPP, Public Solicitor, the Correctional Service, and the Case Support Unit.
In my brief remarks, I’d like to just touch on three things: Firstly, the achievements of the SIG in this sector. Secondly, the challenges facing SIG going forward, and thirdly one or two examples of capacity development, successful examples of capacity development so far.
To start with achievements, as Paul Kelly mentioned in his opening remarks, the leadership of all the justice sector agencies has now been localized. The DPP was localized in July 2006 when Mr Talasasa took over and the Public Solicitor was localized early t his year with Douglas Hou as the acting Public Solicitor.
On the Correctional side, the position of Commissioner of the Correctional Service will be localized on the 1st of November when Mr Barry Aphsey actually departs and Francis Haesoma will take over as the Commissioner of CSSI.
Probably the second example than achievement by SIG is that the Law Reform Commission has been revitalized and is functioning very effectively. It is virtually fully supported by SIG with relatively minor inputs from the program.
There’s been very good progress in disposing of the tension trials and they’ve been completed in the context of a very high quality trial process and appeal court process. Remand times have stabilized, at least than half what they were in early 2007. At 31st August 2008 the average remand time was 6.3months, which was down from a peak of 16.75 months at the end of March 2007.
By way of comparison, on the Australian news last night there was a coverage of a terrorism trial in Melbourne and one of the defendants, a fellow by the name of Shane Kent was remanded back in custody because the Jury was hung in relation to the charges against him. It was said that he had been on remand since November 2005, a total of 34 months. So the remand times in the Solomon Islands compared very favorably, regionally and indeed internationally.
Another major achievement is that organizational and sectoral capacity development is progressing strongly. At the sectoral level there are two quite effective bodies that coordinate the justice sector. There is the Justice Sector Consultative Committee chaired by the Chief Justice and meets monthly, for example, it met yesterday, and there is the Criminal Justice Consultative Forum that meets quarterly and is chaired alternately by the two Permanent Secretaries in our sector. Corporate planning and annual reporting is also progressing very well. As I’ll mention later under challenges, capacity development at the individual level is handicapped because of the comparatively high vacancy rate in establishment positions across the sector. That is a very significant challenge, I think for the SIG going forward.
Another achievement is the very substantial commitment that is being made by SIG to the justice sector, which can be evidenced in a number of ways but one example is the strong growth in the SIG budgetary appropriation for Justice Sector agencies between 2003 and 2008.
Finally, on achievements, I think it is fair to say that the Solomon Islands is a regional leader in at least one area that which would be corrections administration. But I think it is also fair to say that Solomon Islands would be at least level with regional best practice in one or two other areas in our sector. I would probably nominate judicial administration and law reform as two other examples.
The CSSI, the Correctional Service, I think is a particularly strong example at the agency level of capacity development. It’s an employer of choice, and that for example can be evidenced just by yesterday’s Sol Star where there was a two page listing of all the individuals who would apply for the general entry positions in the Correctional Service. Terms and conditions within CSSI are comparatively strong.
The second thing I’d like to touch on is challenges going forward. Undoubtedly, provincial roll out, the delivery of justice services in the provinces is a major challenge, it’s a very thorny problem indeed. In our sector, the Correctional Service is probably the only agency that has a fully effective and functioning provincial presence. The magistracy would be the other example albeit with a significantly less strongly provincial presence than the Correctional Service.
The second challenge is the need to develop a comprehensive human resource strategy for the sector. This is undoubtedly a whole of SIG problem but I can only speak from the point of view of the Law and Justice sector. At the 30th June 2007, the vacancy rate for all lawyer positions across the sector was 61%, which is, 36 positions of an establishment total of 59 positions were vacant at that time. At the 30th June 2008, the vacancy rate had dropped to 41%. There were 25 positions vacant out of an establishment of 61. The improvement had been at the entry level positions. There has been comparatively good success in recruiting graduates coming mainly from the USP into lawyer positions within the sector. But at the senior positions, the level of vacancies remained unchanged over that period of time. The vacancy at the top two levels at the 30th of June 2007 was 75%, 12 of 18 positions and was still 75% at the end of June 2008, and that’s despite a number of quite major recruitment rounds that had been run by the National Judiciary by the ministry, agencies and so on within that time.
The third challenge probably that I would nominate is the importance of support for traditional justice and the strengthening and the clarification of the linkages between the traditional justice system and the formal sector. The traditional justice system bears an enormous burden of the quantity of dispute resolution in the law and justice sector.
In the 2007 People’s Survey, RAMSI People’s Survey, 93% of the people surveyed said that they would resolve a dispute with a neighbor entirely within their own community through the chief, customary law, through the Church by praying and reconciling together and so on. And in the 2008 People Survey, that percentage remains high as well, 84%, and so there is a great burden of justice services within the Solomon Islands is actually delivered by the traditional system. It still functions surprisingly well despite the fact that there’s comparatively little support that SIG is able to provide to this sector at the moment. It is a high priority, I think, that the traditional sector be strengthened and the linkage with the formal sector clarified.
The final thing I would like to touch on is a couple of quick examples of successful capacity development within this sector so far. In my introductory remarks, I mentioned the Law Reform Commission. This agency is now almost fully funded by SIG. Currently the Chief Manager of the Law Reform Commission is an expatriate at the moment and we have a transition strategy to localize that position by the 30th June 2009. There is one expatriate legal researcher who is supporting three locally engaged lawyers. The Law Reform Commission is hopeful that its first major research paper, which will deal with an aspect of its reference on the reform of the Penal Code will be published before the end of this calendar year.
Another example, I think, that is notable is the National Judiciary’s court transcribing unit. When RAMSI arrived in 2003 and for a number of years prior to that, court proceedings, namely the notes of the evidence, the notes of the submissions that were made by counsel, details of the judgment, are all recorded by the presiding judge or magistrate in long hand in his or her court note book. In 2005 the program established a program funded Court Transcription Unit to modernize the process to make it electronic effectively. In 2007 the National Judiciary received funding in the SIG budget for six new posts in the new Court Transcription Unit which was formed within the National Judiciary. That Unit was established in 2007 headed by an expatriate. In addition to the six Solomon Islands Government funded positions there were another four program funded positions as well. On the 31st December 2007, the leadership of that Unit was localized and it transitioned to local leadership.
The other one I’ve mentioned and I’ve touched on this already is the Correctional Service of the Solomon Islands, which is progressed very strongly. The Correctional Service has fully functioning units within the agency. They are responsible for the core functions of a modern correctional service. For example, they have a professional standards unit that investigates breaches of discipline and ethical standards and so on. It has an intelligence unit, an emergency response unit, which is trained in baton use and riot control and so on and so forth, and a rehabilitation and vocational programs unit that operates the rehabilitative or correctional aspects of the correctional service. That probably would suffice, I think as an overview. I’ll hand over to Dawn Casey for machinery of government. Thank you.
Mr Dawn Casey: Director of the Machinery of Government Program in RAMSI. Honorable Chair and members, thank you for the opportunity this afternoon to talk to you about the machinery of government program.
I thought to start with I might just give you a quick explanation given that this broadcast is going out further of just what machinery of government is because unlike law and justice and economic performed, there’s a lot of confusion about just what the term actually means. If we look at in terms of the Solomon Islands machinery of government, this refers to all of the institutions and functions that ensure a country is responsibly governed. It includes the executive - the Cabinet, the Legislature - the Parliament and the Public Service, and is shaped by an established political system and culture. So improving the Solomon Islands machinery of government is going to be a long term process, and it requires significant and sustained support from Ministers, the Public Service, the Civil Society and Development Partners.
If we then look at how the RAMSI machinery of government program fits into that definition, we recognize that to deliver effective government services to the people of Solomon Islands, the government needs properly trained and motivated public servants and parliamentarians and also effective ministries and agencies for them to all working at both the provincial and national level.
RAMSI’s machinery of government program is a partnership with the Solomon Islands Government and the people to help build a better functioning government that can provide its people with better and more efficient services. The goals of the machinery of government program, which have been agreed to with the Solomon Islands Government are a government that is more accountable, more effective and more responsible to the people of Solomon Islands. Our overall goal is to repair and reform machinery of government to ensure effective, transparent and accountable governance.
Although RAMSI has been operating since July 2003, the machinery government program was only approved in late 2004, and an office was established in Honiara in early 2005. The machinery of government activities have been developed at different times and are therefore at varying levels of duration and implementation. As such the period 2005 to 2006 was considered a startup phase for the machinery government.
In the five years from 2007 to 2012 we expect to consolidate capacity building outcomes in five integrated machinery government program areas. These are the Public Service improvement at central agency and provincial government levels, government accountability including work with the Auditor General’s Office, the Leadership Code Commission and the Ombudsman, parliamentary strengthening, electoral strengthening and provincial governance including enhanced capacity for public expenditure management in all nine provinces.
The ‘women in government strategy’ is a cost cutting priority within the machinery of government and is the only coherent RAMSI Program working explicitly on the development of women in government. It is assisting women’s participation in government, both in the political and administrative spheres.
In summary the machinery of government program is working with the Ministries of the Public Service; the Office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the three accountability institutions - the Auditor General’s Office, the Ombudsman’s Office and the Leadership Code Commission; the National Parliament Office; the Ministry of Women, Youth and Children’s Affairs; the Ministry of Home Affairs through the Solomon Islands Electoral Commission and the Ministry for Provincial Government.
Capacity building is the focus of all machinery of government programs. This involves advisors working alongside Solomon Islanders and building capacity, confidence, systems and procedures required to achieve better services for the people. Examples of the machinery of government success in this area are the strengthened Auditor General’s Office which has cleared a backlog of SIG financial accounts dating back to 2000 and of provincial government financial statements dating back to 1993. Audits are now being led by Solomon Island auditors with all staff vacancies filled and a prioritized all staff capacity building plan incorporated within the office’s strategic audit plan.
The National Parliament Office where a combination of strong Solomon Islands Government leadership and advisors selected for both technical and capacity building merit and a highly motivated and energized team of new graduates has led to significant improved services for Members of Parliament and reinvigorated committees.
To get these kinds of positive outcomes, the machinery of government prioritizes working together with government to identify key activities, to undertake joint assessments and to select the right advisors for the job. Our goal is to build capacity and Solomon Islands leadership of these programs within and across government. For example, the machinery of government program has established an accountability program advisory committee to provide us with advice and guidance on the operations of the accountability program by Solomon Islanders.
The Minister for the Public Service convenes regular meetings with myself, the Chairman of the Public Service Commission, the Director of IPAM and his Permanent Secretary to discuss key issues and progress with our programs and more generally talk about issues across the Public Service. By talking together, by making decisions together we’re developing a true partnership.
This year has seen a completion of the designed phase and commencement of the implementation of several of our key programs, in particular the provincial governance strengthening program, Phase II of the Parliamentary Strengthening Program, the Electoral Systems Strengthening Program and the Women in Government Strategy.
The machinery of government program is now well positioned to move forward in partnership with the government to achieve its key objective of strengthening the core institutions of the Solomon Islands machinery of government through these five key program areas. Given the request for a sure introductory statement, I haven’t focused on our key achievements given we work across such a broad range of ministries but I’m happy to elaborate on that further in the committee hearings.
Mr Chairman: Thank you very much.
Mr Kelly: Mr Chairman, we are happy to answer questions you might have.
Mr Chairman: Thank you. Let me start of. I have a submission here on the annual performance report 2006 and 2007. It is a report on the performance of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, July 2007. That would have been the evaluation report for 2006, am I correct? Is there another one after that? Is there another report as such after that?
Mr Kelly: Yes, there is, it is currently being finalized now. The report is for the period 2007 and 2008. As I understand it, the Office of the Prime Minister is wanting to put a copy of that report to Cabinet before releasing it for more wider circulation.
Mr Chairman: Can we have one of those?
Mr Kelly: We can check but I’m pretty sure that we should be able to provide the Committee with that report.
Mr Chairman: Thank you very much. Let’s start of. You talk about capacity building on what you’ve done, the successes and the challenges facing you in building capacity in the three pillars that you are in. It’s actually quite impressive, in my view, anyway. Can each witness tell me, let’s say what are you going to do tomorrow? You wake up, you go to work, how are you going to build capacity for our people tomorrow?
Mr J. Byrne: Let me start of from the economic governance area. I think the advisors across the Ministry really work closely with local counterparts and I work closely with the management within the Ministry to plan ahead what we think the Ministry should look like going forward. At the moment, for example, we are focusing very heavily on middle management in the department. We think that a lot of the routine processes are working reasonable well now. There’s been a reasonable amount of recruitment but to actually drive the next stage of capacity, its leadership and management is going to be required, and so we are focusing on how to support middle management within the department. We are doing that through direct support from advisors but also them being involved in leadership workshops. A number of ….. have gone to Australia for leadership workshops. We’ve run a very major leadership workshop in Customs here, which mostly middle management departments have attended. That’s at the individual.
At the process level, we’ve identified a number of processes within the Ministry that weren’t working very well. The payroll system, for example, the last time it was upgraded was pre-2000. It is quite prone to breaking down. We shouldn’t tell public servants this, I suppose because they worry about getting paid but every now and again the system has to be manually managed to make it work properly. We are in the process now of letting a tender for a new payroll system which will provide better information and better recording of individuals entitlements, levels and general payments.
We are also looking at upgrading the general payment system for the government. The last upgrading of that, I understand was in 2000 with the big issue around the computer systems in 2000. Again, a major upgrade there.
The Ministry as a whole, I think one of the big things we’ve done in the last 69 months is update the corporate plan of the Ministry and reactivate monthly meetings of the Unit Managers across the Ministry where they provide a monthly report of their progress, and also the issues they’re working on at the moment. I think it is providing a much greater feeling of all the managers within the department working together and a sense of cooperation. If one area is having problem with something it doesn’t depend on others throughout the department helping. I think at all three levels individuals, processes and systems and the Ministry as a whole we are focusing on capacity building.
Mr Chairman: That’s actually a lot to do tomorrow.
Paul Griffiths: From the Law and Justice Program. I guess tomorrow we would firstly continue on with the measures we have underway, which I will come to in a moment and there are also a couple of initiatives that may not start tomorrow but will start later on in the week, maybe Friday, I guess. Providing a whole sector capacity development support, we currently have four advisors, a capacity development advisor, a strategic planning advisor, a finance advisor and a legal policy advisor.
I noticed again in yesterday’s Solomon Star that there was an advertisement for two Ministry of Police & Justice positions which are counterparts for two of those four positions, namely the strategic planner and the finance advisor. There was an advertisement notifying the short listing of the applicants for those positions.
Yesterday at the meeting of the Justice sector Consultative Committee chaired by the Chief Justice (JACC), the JACC approved TORs for additional short term TA to bring a person in to assist with the development of a basic suit? of management information statistics to help the leaders and managers of the various agencies and ministries that we support so that the leaders of those agencies will be able in an empirical way through a suit? of management information statistics to monitor the health of the agencies they are managing, and obviously to enable them provide cost effectiveness data when they are, for example, making bids in future SIG budgets and the like.
This week the Correctional Service Solomon Islands Commandants Conference is running all this week. That conference brings together the commandants of all the correctional facilities, I think there are six - Rove, Tetere and the four provincial prisons plus the headquarters program directors of the various elements of CSSI that I touched on earlier - the programs area, the emergency response group, the professional standards unit and so on and so forth. I’ve been here since April 2006 and this has been one of these each year, and that helps to ensure that the capacity and the skills of the provincial commandants and staff is as much as possible on a par with that of the commandant and staff at Rove and Tetere.
On Friday we had interviews for a position of advisor to support the Commissioner designate, the local Commissioner designate of the Correctional Services. I touched on earlier that the position of Commissioner will be localized from the first of November, and we are just in the process of recruiting a person to occupy the position of advisor to support the Commissioner designate. That’s probably a snapshot of the things that are happening more or less immediately.
Ms Casey: The Machinery of Government Program (MOG) has actually moved. From the beginning where we had initial short term advisory support in our ministries to implement five core-long term integrated programs that are focused on capacity building of counterpart agencies and their staff. We’ve actually changed our focus in this regard.
Across the entire Machinery of Government Program, there is only one inline personnel and that is Eric Muir, who is the Acting Auditor General after the unfortunate passing away of Floyd Fatai. We have 12 internationally recruited advisors and one third of these are Pacific Islanders. Thus, our programs do not rely on doing the work of the agency or on the high risks strategy of capacity building and advices individual counterpart relationship but they focus on building a capacity of the whole organization. I think our two key successes in this regard are the National Parliament and the Auditor General’s Office.
Further to this, the MOG emphasizes the development of organizational strategic plans within the Solomon Islands government institution. This planning ensures the organization service delivery goals are explicit and ensures a focus by the Solomon Islands staff and the advisors and identifies any capacity or staffing gaps that need to be addressed. In turn, this ensures that capacity building is aligned with organizational needs and service delivery. A classic example of that is the advisor we brought into the Office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet recently. She spent two weeks working with the staff in the office to build their corporate plan. The Prime Minister has endorsed the model of that plan and said that he would like to see the model across all of the ministries. That was a really good achievement. She was also engaged with the staff in building their implementation plans and their capacity plans. They actually could identify their strengths and weaknesses and we now working with that office to look at building on their capacity plan.
However, the MOG also recognizes the two-way street of capacity building; sustainable capacity building outcomes are best achieved when the quality of the Solomon Islands Government management support and the quality of their counterparts are matched with quality advisors. The Machinery of Government Program is keen to reinforce the importance of ensuring the quality inputs of all stakeholders so that everyone’s resources are used effectively.
The Machinery of Government Program has supported the establishment of a Graduate Development Program, which employs young Solomon Islands University and College graduates under the Machinery of Government Program working in the National Parliament and the Electoral Commission. Our programs also include training courses and sponsor key staff to attend targeted local conferences where there’s potential for immediate use of skills and understanding acquired from the event. We are currently talking to the Ministry of Public Service about how we might expand this to be a Solomon Islands Public Service Graduate Program.
The Machinery of Government is the only program that RAMSI has that is working explicitly on building the capacity and participation of women in government, which is a key priority of the CNURA Government.
Finally, I just say if Dawn Casey, what was her priority in capacity building? I’d have to say that with my experience I have had in public sector reform and change management, there are three key elements that I think are essential to capacity building and building strong institutions. They are: (i) having a strong leadership in the institution, a strong confident and capable leadership; (ii) its about having good advisors here who have the capacity to build and work with the staff, and (iii) it’s about building a strong motivated team that we can actually build their skills and capacity and they want to be part of their institution and they are proud of it. We have two excellent examples of that in the Auditor General’s Office and the National Parliament. I would be very happy if I could take that model and put it across all the institutions we are working with.
Mr Kelly: I think we got a good feel for a range of activities but I just want to clarify that of the four people you see in front of you today, only Jeff Byrne is actually in an advisor type position. The rest of us are actually managing programs.
Mr Chairman: Point taken. Any questions can be thrown on the floor now.
Hon Boyers: We have to come up with new questions here because most of these questions have been answered. But, the question that always comes to my mind and I have always been fairly passionate about is the economy and where it’s going to go as the engine that creates revenue. And Jeff as the line officer in finance, the fiscal reforms that are required to create an environment of growth, I noted that there was a considerable excitement within the business community and the general populace on the tax reform called the VAT tax. We had considerable engagement from the World Bank, IMF, FIAS in trying to push this along and fast track it to be in line with a lot of other Pacific Island nations. I just want to know how far have we gone with that and if it’s still a priority of fiscal reform for our country.
Mr Bryne: Tax reform is, I think, always going to be a priority because having a fair and also an effective tax system is a crucial component of government funding but also taxes impact on the business community, and so it’s important for them to know the environment they are going to operate in.
On the specific issue of a value-added tax, I suppose the strategy we have taken over the last couple of years is to step back a little bit from that as having a very clear end point of a value-added tax and said what we really need to do first was to improve the general processes within the tax agency so that most tax matters we dealt with routinely. Value-added tax was going to be a major change and we felt that having the existing tax regime bedded down well and operating well was an essential ingredient before we take a big jump to something else.
I think the other part of the tax system that has really been a focus is evenhandedness. There have been advisory committees established within the Inland Revenue and also with Customs to provide advice in relation to requests from the business community for special treatment. As you would appreciate anyone who’s paying taxes always thinks they are special and would like to have special treatment. There was considerable concern that that sort of issue wasn’t being considered in a very transparent and evenhanded way. What has happened over the last 18 months is that advisory committees have been established both within Inland Revenue and also with Customs where any application for special treatment is reviewed by those committees against clear, transparent criteria and then they provide advice to the Minister who will make the final decision.
Coming back to the original question of value added, it’s not something that has been abandoned; it’s just that we feel it is more important to get routine processes under our belt, so to speak, to start with before we move to something fairly substantial such as that tough reform.
One other thing that we did earlier on was moved to a more uniformed import duty rate, which again is moving more towards a level playing field in terms of tax treatment.
Hon Tosika: Mr Byrne, I understand that you are looking at economic governance under Customs, and Customs has dual function, and that is collecting revenue and protecting the affairs of Solomon Islands through Customs legislation enforcing laws on behalf of others.
My question is, do you think that Customs, RAMSI personnel and Police are working together to achieve certain objectives under Customs regulation?
Mr Byrne: Customs is an interesting area; in fact there was support for the Customs Agency pre-RAMSI, and so in a sense we inherited some advice support for Customs.
I think Customs is actually one of the areas we would like to be focusing more going forward from here, and I think that’s in part because in a sense support was there before and when RAMSI came in, it was not one of the ones that we identified as requiring special attention early on.
There have been reforms in terms of Customs systems, for example, a computerized customs clearance system has been introduced recently, and certainly the advisory committee in terms of exemptions was introduced. That idea was introduced to Customs last year as well. However, I think in terms of sufficient evenhanded, and I guess I’d called it tough treatment of Customs, this is the way to go. In fact the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry in commending on where he thought priority should be within economic governance going forward, Customs is one of the ones he identified where perhaps we might need a bit more support in the near future in order to get where we want to go in the medium term.
Hon Tosika: Jeff, just one more question. Most of you believing in capacity building, building people to understand their job, have the necessary skills in those jobs, and one of the things I never heard from any of you is improving the earnings of people within those sectors.
Like Customs is one of the organizations as I have said is a frontier organization that deals mostly with people coming into the country and cargoes going out from the country.
Way back in 1998 there was a bonus system created for Custom Officers, which is 1% of the surplus collection and when RAMSI came in that 1% has been thrown out and they go back to the normal practice.
I am raising this because I used to be working for Customs for 17 years and I attended a seminar on the Arusha? Declaration, 12 Points of Arusha?, which needs to be instilled on Customs Officers so that they can be faithful in doing their jobs, because as Customs Officer they are vulnerable to bribery and a lot of revenue can be lost through such attitude and behavior, which we don’t want. If we want to improve revenue it means we have to improve the standard of collection by officers. In this case, when I came back I negotiated with the government for 1% surplus and I managed to get that through to Cabinet. However, I found out last time when I leave Customs that the 1% was removed. During our time we collected $156 million apart from the budgeted revenue of $120 million, which is almost $36 million surplus.
What I am coming at is to instill that eagerness on Customs Officers to collect revenue. It’s not to deprive others but it’s rightful revenue that should be collected by the government. Are you prepared to offer some kind of incentives to Customs Officers so that it motivates them to improving their collections?
Mr Byrne: I think our general aim in terms of encouraging staff within the Ministry and I think probably this applies across the service more broadly is to have fair remuneration for all officers and provide them with a really positive career opportunity. If they perform well they will be promoted and we want to pay people what is considered to be a fair wage.
I am only generally aware of the program you referred to in terms of a reward being paid to Customs Officers where the revenue achieve exceeded the forecast. I did have a conversation with the Permanent Secretary about it at one stage, and I think one of the problems with that sort of scheme is that it actually encourages fairly conservative estimates of the revenue because if you are conservative and you achieve something well above that then you get a major benefit from it. What in fact you want for good financial management is as accurate revenue forecast as you can have because that gives the government information on what funds they are likely to have to carry out their programs. I understand that’s the reason that that was done away with, that in fact it encouraged mis-forecasting, if you like, because you had a direct incentive to under-forecast. Obviously it does create an incentive to perform well but you actually can do better by getting the forecast down than by increasing revenue because it’s the gap that is the basis for the reward.
Mr Chairman: Just that all attention is directed to you, it’s not really planned that way. It’s just that you have two ex-Finance Ministers and a Customs Officer here and we are very interested in that area. It actually covers a lot because you have financial management and sectoral reform and yes, it’s the hub of the economy, the Ministry of Finance where you are at. Any more questions?
Hon Tosika: Dawn Casey, you do understand Solomon Islands attitude to work, which is sometimes daring to see public officers coming in late to the offices and going out early and also at times, there is no strong discipline on public officers, which is rewarding bad behaviors. In fact, it is creating in them the attitude of coming in late and going out early every time because they are never disciplined. In your program how do you see disciplining of officers who come in late for work and going out early? Thank you.
Ms Casey: That’s a very good question and one that we have been talking to the Ministry of the Public Service and the Permanent Secretary about quite a lot since I arrived in the country.
You will be pleased to know that the Ministry of Public Service has been working very hard on developing a code of conduct for public servants, which is now I believe with the Attorney General waiting for clearance, and then the Ministry will be progressing that.
With our program, Machinery of Government and the new Public Sector Improvement Program, we will be working with the Ministry to look at how we can affectively communicate and get that message out to all public servants about the code of conduct.
But in line with that one of the areas that the Ministry is also working to look at with us is the General Orders and the arrangements that are currently in place in relation to discipline. That’s one of the areas that has been identified and the PS in generally speaking to me said there needs to be very clear rules and guidelines about how to discipline staff, what are the mechanisms and the processes they go through, and how the linkages between the Ministry of Public Service, the Public Service Commission and the Ministry that they themselves work, so that PS’ can take responsibility for disciplining staff and to manage those through the procedures of the Public Service.
However, I think we were talking a minute ago about capacity building and I think one of the things I noticed in the Auditor General’s Office and the National Parliament is once you actually establish a real commitment within the staff to what they are doing and they feel proud of what they are doing and they are working within the plan and they know what they have to do when they come in to work each day, and they got strong leadership that models the behaviors that they want then you will see a decline in those sorts of behaviors of not turning up to work and you will see people wanting to come to work and feeling proud of the work they do. I think it’s a combination of a change management and reform as well as making sure we have clear systems and procedures in place.
Hon Soalaoi: In terms of capacity building, as I was listening, it seems that the target is on middle managers. My question is how did you identify where to start? Is it because the problem is with middle managers or is it with the subordinates? What is your general observation on the performance now compared to when you started the program?
What I mean is, did you start just because you want to start with middle managers or was it identified as a problem area and so you started with middle managers. What is your general observation on the current performance of middle managers and subordinates within the ministries? Thank you Chairman.
Ms Casey: That’s a very good question. The previous work that has been done in the Institute of Public Administration, with the Public Service Ministry has probably focused on identifying some critical areas that needed to be addressed around recruitment processes and some key development programs.
Under the Public Service Sector Improvement Program, we will be looking at the three levels of leadership development. We will be focusing on the high level of the executive level and what’s needed to merely develop and build the capacity amongst our leaders in the Public Service. We will be looking at the middle management level and what needs, their requirements and at the entry level requirement.
One of the things that we have just undertaken is a review of the Institute of Public Administration and Management and we have a program that’s waiting for a number of recommendations about what needs to be done with IPAM to make it a more effective institution for building capacity of public servants, and within those three levels we will be designing and developing programs.
When you talk about the middle management level, I think it is very, very critical that we do focus on that middle management level because the PS’s are often leaders of the organization but are working very hard and they can’t do everything, and so they actually need to have their middle management skills and capabilities and leadership abilities built so that the ministries themselves can be more effective and also that we build a cadre of people who are future permanent secretaries.
Focusing on middle management is very important but we also need to work with the senior level executives so that we can build strong leadership qualities and capabilities and that they have the support they need to do their jobs well.
There is different capacity building that’s needed for our senior executive as for our middle management. Also if you are going to build a strong public service, you need to have a strong entry level capacity building. The Public Sector Improvement Program will be looking at all three levels but we’ll be working with the Ministry of to identify which of the priorities and how to run those over what period of time.
Hon Maelanga: I would ask Paul this question. We know that the Law and Justice Program is under the Ministry of Police and Justice. I would like to ask Paul if they have ideas in their programs for police livelihoods. I know that a lot of trainings have been given to our Police and Prison Services officers, but looking at their livelihoods like housing is a big problem. Does the Law and Justice Program will take into consideration the livelihood of police officers?
Mr Griffiths: Yes, thank you for that. I should clarify that the civilian Law and Justice Program supports the justice agencies and the correctional service, and obviously we work closely with the police on common issues, but essentially support to the Solomon Islands Police Force is provided by the Participating Police Force headed by Commander Dennis McDermott. Issues of funding support for staff housing and so on with respect to the Police need to be directed to the Commander of the PPF.
Staff housing, I probably just mentioned, however, is an issue not just in the Police Force but right across the Solomon Islands Government. I’d probably suggest that one of the reasons, as I mentioned earlier, that the Correctional Service has a functioning provincial presence more so than any of the other agencies in our sector is at least in part because the Correctional Service has been able to secure from the Solomon Islands Government funds to improve staff housing and they have been able to date to spend most of that money. For example, in 2006, the Correctional Service spent just under half a million Solomon dollars on staff housing; about $493,770.00. In 2007, this is from the SIG budget, the CSSI spent three quarters of a million Solomon dollars; about $751,000, and this year 2008 the Solomon Islands Government has appropriated SBD$7.140 million for staff housing for the CSSI. New housing, for example, for staff has been built at Tetere, the barracks at Naha and some of the other staff housing has been upgraded. That’s been, Solomon Islands Government’s money appropriated for that purpose. Our program provides support in the form of an infrastructure advisor who works in the Correctional Service assisting the Correctional Service to go through the process of actually spending that money in the right and proper way; conducting the tenders, evaluating the tenders, letting the contract, monitoring the contracts and so on and so forth, which is a big job in itself. But I can’t really speak, I am afraid, in respect to specifically police housing or police terms and conditions. I am sorry. Thank you.
Mr Kelly: Just on that question. Again it is a question best answered by the Participating Police Force but police housing has been identified as an important consideration in helping to build a professional Police Force. It’s something that RAMSI in communication with the Solomon Government and other donors have to work out a way to identify what appropriate systems might be.
Hon Ghiro: Ms Dawn Casay, Sir Allan in his presentation to the Committee on Monday said that the way the colonial government and churches administered the country before independence was very successful. One of the elements he referred to was the setup of the headman system in communities as the government agent coordinating government activities. Has such major review of the government system been considered or discussed at your level with your pillars or apart from the framework document?
Ms Casey: Would you just repeat that question please?
Hon Ghiro: What I was referring to was the statement made by Sir Allan on Monday on the government system. He said that the colonial government and the churches in administering the government were very successful. What I am asking is in such a major review of the government system, did you take into consideration or discuss this activity at your level?
Ms Casey: I think I’ve got the answer for you, but let know if I haven’t properly answered it. As I have been talking to the Public Service Ministry there has been a lot of acknowledgement of the systems that were established in the Solomon Islands Government earlier on before the tensions were very sound and good. I guess there is a feeling that a lot of progress was made under those systems. A part of the Public Sector Improvement Program, there is a broad framework that has been put forward and designed for improvement in the public sector. We would be looking at those systems and how they work and what needs to change within or what needs to be refined within, I guess, the public sector and the civil service.
Also the Parliamentary Strengthening Program Phase 2 is looking at what works within the Parliament and how that works and we are also working with the Office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to look at how the systems of that Office works effectively and see how we can improve systems and processes within that framework.
The accountability program is currently looking at the legislation and seeing whether the legislative frameworks under which the Ombudsman’s Office, the Leadership Code Commission and the Auditor General’s Office work. There is a new legislation going forward to Parliament in the next around the Auditor General’s Office, and we are drafting out new legislation for the Ombudsman’s Office and the Leadership Code Commission.
More generally the Machinery of Government Program does look at those systems of government and works with the Solomon Islands Government to look at how we might refine and reform them, looking at what’s worked before and what may need to be changed to make it more effective again.
To me it seems to be a combination of a whole of lot of things in relation to improving the public service, improving those three key areas that I mentioned about the machinery of government - the legislative, the executive and the public service itself making them all work together. And I guess being mindful of what worked before under the colonial systems. Does that answer your question?
Hon Ghiro: Yes.
Hon Boyers: Mr Chairman, somebody whispered to me that I have to be brief and so I am going to try and put three questions into one.
The issue of RAMSI in the pillars is all about strengthening and capacity building Solomon Islands and Solomon Islanders. Looking into the future, when you talk about exit strategies, what has to be inward looking to Solomon Islands in that situation? When you look at Solomon Islands you look at it as the fastest growing population in the Pacific if not the world; 50 percent of the country’s population is under 21. We have a national debt of $2 billion and it’s going to take at least 20 years to pay that off. There are global environmental pressures.
When you look at this growth rate of 5% or whatever, it looks like our exit strategy from debt into financial independence is it at least 20 years away, knowing that maybe 10 years down the track our population is going to be 60 to 70 percent under 21. This is like chasing our tail, so to speak.
There was a program mentioned by Program Director, Dawn Casey from 2008 to 2012 on capacity building programs and the machinery of government. In 2005 I attended an ADB meeting and I met an UNDP representative and we were talking about MDGs. When we were at this meeting and in fact they couldn’t even find our country on the map, we weren’t even on the governance indicators that would qualify us.
Do you think that by 2012, which I believe is the MDG period of achievement, do you think we’re going to have the governance indicators that would qualify us for the Millennium Challenge Fund and do you think we would be able to achieve free education, good basic health care and the necessary capacity to qualify us to be recognized on a direction of maybe financial independence? What are your views on this?
Mr Kelly: That’s a big question and an important question, and I guess it involves an element of trying to anticipate the future, which is difficult. The Millennium Development targets have a set of 8 key objectives to achieve, about ….. and at current rates the Solomon Islands is probably unlikely to meet many, if any of those. That’s not necessarily surprising, of course, when you consider the ground lost during the period of the tension.
At this stage the focus is very much on providing a stable environment to make up that ground and I guess provide that foundation, which I think at this stage would be ambitious to expect to achieve the millennium development goals but certainly the turnaround progress. So the Solomon Islands Government is starting to head in that direction.
RAMSI is developing with the Solomon Government an approach to plan its exit. Again we talk about that being conditions based and we are developing some of those aspects trying to identify what might be an appropriate time. But the main thing for RAMSI is to ensure that we are able to create the environment and a public sector capacity where the government has the capacity to deliver services that are affective, affordable and sustainable without direct RAMSI intervention. But a lot of these things are big development challenges confronting many countries across the world, not just the Pacific, not just Solomon Islands, and the Solomon Islands Government continues to work with its development partners to address those challenges.
Mr Byrne: I’ll probably just going to pick up the point about financial independence. I think it would be a very big ask for Solomon Islands to be completely financially independent within five years. But there are other countries in the world that are in similar positions. I think when we are thinking about the role of RAMSI here, it’s about what is the comparative advantage of RAMSI as a way of supporting the Solomon Islands Government and building capacity within the Solomon Islands Government, what is its comparative advantage, how does that help Solomon Islands move towards that objective, an objective that’s out there. Where does RAMSI as an approach help?
I think the second element of the question was in a sense not needing aid. I think this again comes back to RAMSI is a particular approach, which allows a very strong focus on capacity building. There are lots of other aid programs that also provide support in Solomon Islands and elsewhere.
I think when we are thinking about what are the end points for RAMSI, it is not about at what point does the Solomon Islands achieve financial independence, but at what point is the advantage of RAMSI as a way of building capacity, where does that run its course and then other aid programs, which exist and will continue to evolve would take up some of that support role.
I think it’s unfair to set a target in saying financial independence for Solomon Islands and for a lot of other countries as well.
Ms Casey: I might just answer your question in relation to machinery of government program. As I said at the beginning of my opening remarks, repair and reform to the Solomon Islands machinery of government is a long term project and most of the machinery of government programs is long term, for example, 10 years plus timeframe for the Public Sector Improvement Program and the Provincial Government Strengthening program. However, RAMSI is a short term intervention, and therefore we envisaged that the machinery of government programs will progressively transition from direct RAMSI engagement into other programs. So it could mean they’ve moved into AusAID bilateral programs, they might move into other donors and picking them up or in some cases the Solomon Islands Government will take over direct responsibility for them. A good example of that is the current four-year phase two program at the Parliament finishes in 2012 and is expected that there’ll be no further support required after that the Parliament Office would be able to manage and run on its own. However, the 10 years time frame at the public sector improvement program and the provincial government strengthening program realistically reflect that there’s a lot of time needed for capacity building and the legislative and the performance changes that are required.
In our planning all of our programs have transition plans and indicators that which we would think there will be an exit strategy or a transition plan for them. We actually work close in partnership with the Solomon Islands Government and so we have been working to review our programs and see at what stage are they at and how long do they need before we would transition them out and how do we do that.
Hon Boyers: I have one more question. Yesterday, I think Paul Kelly mentioned the word ‘peace dividend’, and I suppose that’s what we are looking at, at the end of the day with a lot of this capacity building and programs. The last question I would like to ask to Paul Griffiths is this.
You mentioned traditional social burden and it’s very highly popular and being reviewed with a statistics report of 80 to 90%. For Solomon Islanders listening in the rural areas, they would be interested to know this because you’ve made some very interesting comments about recognition of social justice burden in traditional settings for reconciliation. In the hearts and minds of Solomon Islanders there is the need to identify the process of justice in our formal system and how it can somehow be recognized or given first option prior to any formal movement as far as charges are concerned. I believe your comments probably would be welcomed. But could you explain further under your program how this is being viewed and what steps are being made in trying to incorporate this into the formal system.
Mr Griffiths: Yes, thank you very much for the question. I guess the starting point is that the Solomon Islands Constitution preserves the operation of customary law, save where it is expressly displaced by legislative amendment or whatever. However, there are probably two observations to make about that. Firstly, customary law is not uniformed throughout the country but it varies from community to community. Traditional law is not a single block of consistent customary law throughout the country. And secondly, the Constitution doesn’t spell out or does any subsequent legislations spell out the linkage between the traditional system and the formal system. It doesn’t identify the respective spheres of operation for the two bodies of law, how do matters move backwards and forwards. What matters perhaps should only be dealt with in the formal system and so on and so forth.
The observation I made in my earlier remarks was that in terms of the quantity of disputes that are resolved within the Solomon Islands, the vast majority of disputes are settled within the context of the traditional system.
There are probably two ways in which we are working with the Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs to try to support some strengthening in the traditional sector. The first is a program that is only in its early stages but it’s known as justice delivered locally, and that is endeavoring initially to do a stock take of the state of health of the traditional system around the country. We’ve endeavored to identify how the system actually operates, the state of the physical infrastructure used, the level of support or compliance with the system around the country, and issues like that. And on the basis of gathering that information, the Solomon Islands Government will then be able to develop some interventions to strengthen the system that we would be able to support. That’s necessarily going to be quite a long term project, and at this stage, as I mentioned, it’s at the evidence gathering stage where data has been collected from a number of provinces around the country. I think in the medium term, by which I mean probably in the course of calendar year 2009, we would work with the Solomon Islands Government to see what that data tells us and what we can then do by way of developing interventions that could be piloted, for example.
The other project is one that I perhaps should only talk about in general terms because I guess at this stage it’s a matter that’s before the Solomon Islands Government. I think it’s generally known, for example, the Chief Justice spoke about this at a conference in Vanuatu, where we are assisting the sector to develop draft legislation called the, at this stage it has the title of the Tribal Lands Dispute Resolution Panel Bill and that legislation aims to streamline and revamp the traditional process in dealing with land disputes around Solomon Islands. But that project similarly has a long way to go because although the legislation has existing draft form, the Solomon Islands Government needs to decide on, probably a broad based consultative strategy to refine the legislation. And then, of course, the implementation of the legislation requires a considerable amount of thought as well.
The Honorable Member would obviously know far better than me how intractable they are, and it’s an area where a deal of caution is probably the best approach, even know the problem is immediate, and the solutions need to be developed locally but our program will be assisting where we can to develop those solutions as will the Australian bilateral program, which in this area takes the lead on the resolution of land issues.
That’s probably as much as I can say on that subject at this stage. Thank you.
Mr Chairman: One last question.
Hon Soalaoi: In fact I have two questions but I’ll only ask one because of time constraint.
When the Public Accounts Committee looks at the budget, it usually expresses its frustration on the time and the way budgets have been prepared. It’s obvious that the budget process is not getting any better every year. It’s obvious in the last Supplementary Appropriation Bill and also the Bill proper that we had to rush things because of time leading to a lot of errors, even after the Bill was passed it was passed with amendments. That happens every year. Is anything being done to improve the way the budget is prepared in the Ministry of Finance and Treasury?
Mr Byrne: I suppose in the end the budget process is run by the Government and by the Parliament. So the capacity to have an error free budget is always a challenge when changes are made at the last minute and so on.
In terms of our budget processes getting better, I think we are certainly planning further ahead in terms of developing the budget. I think one of the things that has been ……… for this year is a much more consistent messaging around what the challenges in the budget are going to be from the Ministry of Planning, the Ministry of Public Service and the Ministry of Finance. I think those key players were all in the initial budget launch providing the same messages to agencies.
I think the second thing that has improved is the dialogue between line agencies and the Ministry of Finance in terms of what is required in budget bids, what is potentially available and the process for putting the bids in. I think those have really improved. This year, for example, virtually all of the bids from agencies have been put in within a reasonable timeframe of the deadline that was set. That certainly the first time that’s occurred in the last few years.
Now does that leads to better budget decisions? I don’t think it’s for me or any bureaucrat to comment on the quality of budget decisions because in the end government’s decisions are where budget decisions should set. But the processes itself, I think, has considerably improved. Thank you.
Mr Chairman: Thank you very much RAMSI Development Coordinator and your very capable team for participating in our meeting today.
Mr Kelly: Thank you, Mr Chairman we appreciate the opportunity to discuss issues with you.