The smell of barbequed smoke in the wind announces to one and all that some good things are on the way. The sweet-smelling smoke sends a welcome signal to an anxious and hungry people that sausages, chicken wings, tuna steaks, etc are about ready. This is one way of describing where the Grand Coalitionfor Change Government finds itself at present.
People across the nation have been smelling the political barbequed meat--strengthening the quality of village life, rural development and the 'bottom up approach' for the past nine months and they hungrily await theirturn to finally taste this meal.
In reality, however, villagers have been promised this barbequed meal since 1978. It took 20 years of frustrated waiting but in 1998, they had had enough. After all wasn't this their country! Didn't they own more than 95% of its land, trees, rivers, reefs and fishing areas? More than 84% of them made up the overwhelming majority of the population! And still they hadn't once tasted the barbeque meal in almost thirty years! Their patience snapped and the nation witnessed five years of Social Unrest.
But I think this time things have really changed. Solomon Islanders now smell the odor of the barbeque meat, it's become stronger and stronger since May last year when the new government took charge of the cooking. In past years governments of the day always told villagers to wait. The meat wasn't cooked well enough! Even the GCC government was forced to delay its work until Parliament recently gave the green light to the 2007 Budget. Now,
finally, the budget has been passed.
Fortunately, the government has not been quietly sitting by waiting for the meal to be properly cooked. Last week, for instance, its servants--Cabinet Ministers and their Permanent Secretaries--have been learning how to be better servants, to carefully cook the barbeque, to prepare a meal well, etc. The Commonwealth Foundation working out of its London office sent a
team of top chefs to the Solomons to conduct a three-day servants workshop to strengthen our own local servants and to teach them to cook better.
The workshop was more about the quality of Parliamentarians' and Permanent Secretaries' work ethic and much less about marketing and packaging. It stressed programs, services and products than advertising and public relations. In other words even if the government can boast of an attractive logo or catchy tagline--Bottom Up Approach--the target audience, the village
and the villager, must not be allowed to once again experience all sizzle and no steak. If this happens, it won't take long for our people to see only smoke and realize there's no meat on the grill!
But the exercise of touching the basic lives of village people in practical ways is the responsibility of all Solomon Islanders. Of course the Chief Cooks (MPs) and their senior waiters (PSs) are only the first in a long lineof other workers, not all on the government payroll.
That's why the GCC Government recognizes Church groups with their unequalled village-based structures, the NGO sector with its outreach commitment and villagers themselves as not only necessary but important lines of workers bringing the barbequed meal to those sitting furthest fromthe kitchen.
For too long village people have had to suffer the pain of sitting at the head table and then watching others wolf down the barbeque meal that had really been cooked for them. At long last, we now have a chance to change this event and get the owners of the nation sitting down at the head tableand enjoying the barbeque at long last..
J. Roughan
5 March 2007
Honiara
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