PROFIT IS KING BUT CASH RULE

Not so long ago, Ray Set Fah Chu (hereinafter referred to as Chu) made our lives a hopeless case. But, he made history in Solomon Islands! Chu created the first political mining operation on west Rennell.

Raychel Fasifera aka Mrs Ray Set Fah Chu, 2021 

A learned friend told me, he supposedly leased the whole of west Rennell, in the same way he headed the Town Ground saga! (Town Ground Plaza) “Its better you don’t ask,” he said. “It don’t pay even to talk about it,” Chu died the year before last. We do not know how he died. What we do know, he died very wealthy!

In 2013, Chu convinced the PM – Prime Minister, at that time, GDL – Gordon Darcy Lilo to mine West Rennell bauxite. And, Chu built his resources or empire around APID – Asia Pacific Investment Development, along with, a “court jester” to entertain guests and landowners in their quest to mine west Rennell!

It changed SI – Solomon Islands politics forever.

We were kind of acting like fools then, every single one of us, just like the “court jester,” we had our jokes, and they had their laughs. The RB – Rennell Bellona Premier, at that time, told us to enjoy the privileges of Extreme! And Heritage Park Hotel, “they will pay the bill!” he said. But, “wasn’t there a terrific fuss about it (SBD $4 million dollar bill?)” we asked.

In 2014, a new PM walks in, and pledged to revoke Chu’s mining lease on west Rennell, and that’s when it went from bad to worse case scenario! We had a Speaker of Parliament, as well as others, mostly, RB clerk, member, and legal advisor, followed by a whole lot of duce bag, after that. “Wham! And that”, my learned friend added with a touch of relish, “was the very last sunset he ever did see.”

The PM nonetheless praised the company for “good corporate citizenship,” What sort of things? But, they hush it up. The mining folks hush it up, and so do the RB folks, because things like that are very bad for business.

When we put up his face on face book, a few months ago, and it went viral, he didn’t like that very much. I presume his little ratty face went absolutely blank, and he sat there staring ahead, saying nothing. “I am not a natural human being,” he replied, darkly, “I am a legal person!”

Prime Minister Honorable Manasseh Sogavare and Rennell & Bellona Premier
Honorable Willie Tuhagenga, August 2020

Nowadays, I suppose, we ape the Chinese in most things. Never more so than in the business of political animal, in advertising, government, contract, investment, banking, laws, customs, quarantine, and shipping, and so as climate change, which has been established, too. Work on the detail will go on. But, the “Look North Policy” that Fiji’s Frank Bainimarama advocated for the last 10 years has now come to SI politics.

It’s that legal person, I presume, and it happens because their timing is right, and as we all keep blathering, it is Matthew Wale’s authority as the alternative PM that is on show this weekend, not the democratic party or its policies, nor in its alternative Axiom mining company, or the win win situation for that matter.

For now, have no doubt, as it was for GDL when he ousted Danny Philip as NACRA leader in November 2011 (and became PM three days later), as it was for Rick Houenipwela when he regained the DCCG leadership from the hapless Manasseh Sogavare in November 2017 (and became PM for seventeen months).

The absolute political imperative common to each of these leaders was party unanimity (or the illusion of it) in the leader’s authority. The Sogavare ascension merely duplicates a precedent that stretches back, if you like, to British Protectorate. For example, Solomon Mamaloni, one of the most controversial political figures of the last half of the last century, never took a backward step to anyone, even the US of A!

Mamaloni, a wealth of history, was the most astute, hard-nosed, stick-it-up-your-bum politician of his era, every bit as tactful as our party leader, and far more authentic and politically adept than the democrats’ Rick Houenipwela, a PM of great acumen and no style who could never have become PM without the quite massive support of our party leader, Manasseh Sogavare.

However, don’t be fooled by the twaddle from some hysterics that Sogavare’s position is unique. “Our party” is desperate to hold on to power after just 3 of the past 43 years of SIG – Solomon Islands Government. It thinks Sogavare can deliver on the promise of the past months’ opinion polls!

So, until the next election sometime before Christmas, 2023? Our party leader can pretty much do and say as he wants, and “our party” will cop it, grudgingly or otherwise. That is the reality of what is happening this week. So, too, is the fact that, “this legal person,” and his client, is what we call a PPP – a prissy, precious peacock. And don’t imagine we are the only one who thinks so. One day the RB electorate will learn about their murky, if very human side.

For the moment it knows only their good bits, the intelligence, the fresh open face, that beaming smile, the immense energy. But don’t imagine we’ll be getting our savior Jesus Christ or John the Baptist. What is going to pass on SIG absurd mining policy (not to mention infrastructure, fishery, tourism, forestry, or agriculture) on Rennell and Bellona Province should make that clear to anyone even slightly interested in national politics.

Rennell and Bellona Province for example does not have a mining ordinance. But, if so, it’s merely an executive summary about mining, and not a mining ordinance that was deliberated on, and passes by a full provincial assembly. What it has is an excuse to dig it up in three different places around the province, including East Rennell World Heritage Site! What it will most likely have after today is another excuse for why it can be dug up anywhere in Rennell, and in Bellona, and shipped overseas, predominantly to China, but not be paid here, it will be a policy just as absurd as the one the so called PPP want to retain, which is no more than bending over for BMSI – NESI, already one of the government’s biggest miners who wants to be bigger in Rennell and Bellona Province.

This brings us back to the Rennell oil spill documentary, “Ripples in Rennell.”

Oil spill in Kangava Bay Rennell, February 2019.

None of it from SIG, the Rick Houenipwela led government turned it down flat – to make a documentary on what he calls “the grim truth about west Rennell mine,” was eventually knocked back for an interview, and was ignored too by RB and MP – Member of Parliament, in whose village the oil spill thrives. The caretaker PM comes out of it looking like a politician with something to hide, even though DCCG doesn’t mind how much of west Rennell bauxite is exported! It is a state of mind rampant across the Ministry of Mines, the Ministry of Provincial Government, and PMO – Prime Minister’s Office.

Back at home, nobody was listening. Worse, no-one was really interested, too. Their mission was the same as Chu. Now, it’s the PPP. But, whereas the PPP is making profit, west Rennell is negotiating cash, what they ended up with was a trust fund (not a sovereign fund) of significance for both the PPP and its client. Yet, most of us know almost nothing of it. Like in west Rennell, we weren’t really interested, however fundamental the issue, when it involves our relations with someone as “small time, as boring,” as Rennell and Bellona Province.

Unless there’s conflict! We, the men and women of Solomon, become as dismissive and as patronizing of our very own Polynesian province as Indonesia is of west Papua, as China is of Solomon Islands, or as the British were during colonial rule. Rennell and Bellona Province? My God, so what?

Attitudes, you see.

SIG can look down on Rennell and Bellona Province as being of no account, except for their beautiful girls and their rugby players. They take us as much for granted as the Chinese do to indigenous peoples of Solomon. It’s the psychology of the large and powerful friend. It’s why our “wantoks” really enjoy RB jokes. We put their big dog arrogance into perspective.

There is nothing funny about west Rennell mining agreement, royalty payments, or rights of nature – for their criminalization, damages, and compensation! More so, the closer economic relations agreement (PCDF or MID) between Honiara and Tigoa, business, contractors knew about it, so do the politicians, the ministers, miners, loggers, and land owners.

No barriers, few bounties. Anything and everything, with few exceptions, to all intent and purposes, in the mining area, RB will become another Solomon state, and Solomon will become another RB islands, or else, perhaps, two governments thinking the same way. Both governments, to survive, realize they’ve got to have, one, regional governance, and two, access to community, province, government, contracts, markets, supplies, logistic, and machinery.

If we couldn’t get an agreement (or good governance) between ourselves, there’d be something radically wrong, wouldn’t there?

Good grief! I never mentioned viciousness, malice, friendly enemies, irreconcilable differences and/or identification, ego. Maybe. But really, it’s all about political will, or legal power to take decisions that have a political cost. Otherwise, why has it taken all these years for two governments as close, historically, and now, culturally, as Honiara and Tigoa, to reach such an obvious agreement as PCDF, MID MOU, or TENDER between them?

MP Rennell & Bellona Constituency 
Honorable Dr Tautai Kaituu, 2021

We know what a political problem is. Nobody has to tell us that. We don’t have to tell anyone else, either. There’s always a political problem somewhere. I mean, this government (or lawyer) could have decided a quite different solution, an easier solution, to our rural problems, such as, water supply, sanitation, electricity, housing, transportation, medical supplies, schools, wharfs, roads, churches, and human rights!

Now a tremendous amount of work has gone into getting this message across in Solomon Islands, and in the UN – United Nations system, in the last two years, a tremendous amount, and our time is coming soon, I know. It is political will, and due process, law, you’re right. It doesn’t matter which government we talk to, the bottom line ultimately is, what political problem does it create domestically?

It’s also a matter of direction. Cars, footwear, clothing and textiles, sugar, all those things for us are difficult. Once you crack the iceberg, a big crack, you say, then we can start to move. Well, we’re moving now.

The PM agrees there’s still much fear in Solomon Islands about change, about peace, and about unity, and a lot of people come from families who do not like Covid-19 or its provisional vaccine. Militants who remember the ethnic tensions, who also remember, certainly, the 80s march on RB when there was massive unemployment! You can’t be dismissive of the arguments against economic rationalism. What you’ve got to do is persuade people where you’re going in the long term.

You’ve got to persuade people you can’t just build a wall around yourselves (well, China once did!) yes, SIG did too. But, you need to wake up. It’s not just a structural phenomenon, it’s a structural change. And, it’s also a cultural change too. And how you can do it quickly or more quickly is the difficult balance. Look, we’ve restructured but we’ve got to be able to generate jobs, business, industry, and equity! That’s the only great thing we’ve got to deliver.

Solomon Intel (SI) July 2021

What nobody can deliver is political discourse, as experienced, it’s only just, and autonomy of RB region, too, its Indispensable Reef, and its Australian sky corridor! The RB Premier (a few months ago at Jinas Restaurant), for example, mulls over such “First Nation” talks as pie in the sky!

Solomon Intel (a social media platform), ran a line in July 2021 that said, “What would Rick Hou do?” what RB Premier had said about SI politics wasn’t printed last week, because they didn’t agree with what he had to say. I doubt it’ll ever happen. “It’s just a numbers game,” Rick said. Certainly, not while I am writing columns and you’re sitting there.

The PM would be delighted – Profit is king but cash rule.