Thursday 13th August

I’m convinced I’m dealing with 5 year old kids. Not the work crew, the idiots that run the various Govt Depts. Because they have a snitch with Keithie, they are happy to see 20 people out of work, a training programme scrapped, and the Nursery and education programme closed. I am just fed up with the whole thing.

The Head of Forestry has refused to work alongside us, but won’t put anything in writing, the Mayor of Honiara City council is another, and the Town Clerk. They send messages through the people we work with, which makes a mockery of the refusal to work alongside, we’re doing it now for christs sake. Power corrupts, absolute power etc.

There’s more in the papers about the Mps entitlements again. The Finance Dept has apparently already transferred the extra $4million to the Govt for their personal use. Unemployment is at 80% in Honiara, there is no sewage, roads, footpaths, reliable electricity supply or water, factories, processing plants for fish/fruit, transport outside of Honiara, but they can give themselves $500,000 each at the end of every term of Government.

And there is no actual income to cover it. We are totally dependent on overseas aid for everything. They’ll probably sell off what forest is left to Korea and Malaysia, and if the past is anything to go by, will keep the money for themselves as usual. And leave the villages in ruins with no forest crops or food, no land, and no money. I think we would have to climb a few rungs to make 3rd world status.

I know I sound a bit jaundiced about it all, I’ve spent 6 months beating my head on block walls trying to get things, well, anything, done, and it all comes down to the people at the top of the food chain playing stupid buggers. What makes the situation here worse is that the people in Govt that were the main reason for the riots in 2006 are the ones doing the same thing again, due to the way Solomon politics work. I can’t see anything good coming from the present situation, mine at work, and the way the Govt is going.

AusAid is changing the way the aid money is distributed, the same as NZ Aid. Instead of cash grants, it’s now tied to individual advisors to disperse, not the politicians. The politicians are jumping up and down claiming it is interference in Solomon Island affairs, but it is about time the graft, outright theft and corruption was dealt with.

Total benefits from $2.5million spent of the $10million Taiwanese Cattle Development fund are 5 cows, 3 on one island and 2 on another. And they went to wantok of the minister in charge, who claimed that the money had to be spent on cattle pens, fences, housing for the farm workers. At that rate we’ll end up with 20 cattle and nothing to show apart from some single strand wire fences and expensive houses for the ministers family

I’m hoping Steve can get me into the training school soon, before I really go mad with frustration. Tiffany and I are just filling in time at work Thursday and Fridays, writing up reports, trying to hide where $37,000 of CSP funding has gone, I’m going to throw it all back in Keithies lap and let her work it out. All the community work has drained the bank accounts out totally.

It's a day early, but it's the 14th here, and I won't be in over the weekend

la briethe mhaith agat Maire!