The Ministry of Rural Development (MRD) has acknowledged the Member of Parliament for West Kwaio Constituency (WKC) for highlighting in Parliament challenges faced by the ministry in the implementation of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) particularly, the high price of supply goods and services through the Preferred Supplier Arrangement (PSA).
The ministry in a statement said that this is a valid issue but assured Honourable Claudius Tei’ifi that MRD is working diligently to strengthen its Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) activities to meaningfully address it.
Meanwhile, the ministry further welcomes the suggestion from the MP to channel the CDF through the Provincial Capacity Development Fund (PCDF) model and hope that the MP will help the ministry pilot these important changes in his constituency by adopting the PCDF model.
“The ministry will ensure that all project proposals of West Kwaio Constituency has to go through the Ward Development Committees (WDC) within WKC. In that regards, MRD is calling on the MP Tei’ifi to ensure that all ward development committees in the constituency to apply under the PSA and that, they have to register first as a business company with the Company Haus. MRD will ensure that the MP for WKC must carry through with his call to utilize the CDF allocation for Financial Year 2023 through the PCDF model and, MRD stands ready to provide support.
“Let us hope that the WDC committees within WKC can satisfy all the business and banking requirements come FY2023 so that they can apply as a preferred supplier to the ministry,” the statement said.
MRD is encouraging those that have the capacity to operate as businesses and provide goods and services to our 50 constituencies to submit applications to the ministry once tenders are open in February 2023.
The ministry recognized MP Tei’ifi for raising these important outstanding issues and that MRD is already taking steps to address these issues step by step, and most importantly in collaboration with all 50 constituencies.
“Regarding the delay in the appointment of its constituency officials, the ministry takes responsibility for partly because appointments are approved by the Public Service Commission (PSC) and depends entirely on when PSC meets. However, appointment letters of constituency officials should reach them already and the ministry thanked the patience of officers concerned,” the statement clarified.
The ministry wants to assure the public that there are expected improvements to the delivery of the CDF once the new Solomon Islands Constituency Development (SICD) Policy is completed and approved by the cabinet.
– MRD Press
