No one wants to be servant!

J. Roughan

15 September 2010

Honiara

Recruiting stewards and stewardesses for international as well as in-country airlines is getting harder and tougher these days. Yes, these airline people like the pay, they love travelling all over the world and they look forward to all the excitement but balk continuously about being servants . . . serving people during the flight.

 

People, these days, don't want to be considered servants. Leaders, yes! Big Men, certainly! Any title is fine so long as it doesn't have too much connection with service, putting others before oneself. Isn't this part of our national leaders current problem! How they love hearing the title 'Honourable' but find it hard to see themselves, their role and their duty primarily to serve those who have voted them into power!

 

And this attitude of not accepting that a Member's first and foremost duty is servant introduces dangerous practices. It's so much easier to hand out project proposal funds than making sure that No.9 is functioning well, that the toilets are not overflowing with human waste and the doctors, nurses and technical staff are hard at work, each day, every day.

 

Much the same could be said about teachers. Rural schools too easily loose out having the necessary teaching staff who are actually in the classroom for five days a week for the 40 weeks of the school term. Members have a duty to the people of his constituency to make sure that this happens.

 

Our young people cry out constantly for more employment, better jobs and ways of regularly making a few dollars. Waiting for the overseas investor to come in and magically produce these jobs does not work. Yet, parliament has yet to set itself up as a major help in this field. RAMSI, for instance, has poured in more than 6 BILLION dollars (1 Billion Australian) into the Solomons since 2003. Yet we don't have a fruit picking program for our young people in Australia as New Zealand has done in its own country. This is where an active Parliament comes in handy. It has the mandate to create legislation formerly requesting Australia to be as generous in their agriculture areas as they have been through RAMSI.

 

Over the years, certainly since 1989 when SIDT ran its first Report Card and published the poor survey results over a twenty year period of Report Cards, it became clear that a major shift was happening right under our noses.  Parliamentarians were changing their understanding of what was primary and essential as members: law makers, monitoring government's performance, steering the ship of state away from reefs and danger. 

 

But they began to view their work less and less as service to people and what was actually asked of them as law makers, monitors, and managers of the Ship of State.  Many were giving higher preference to becoming project supervisors, social welfare workers and walking ATMs dispensing money.

 

Witness Transparency Solomon Islands recent report of the members of the 8^th parliament. According to its findings, five members could only drag themselves to parliamentary sittings 50% of the time and many, many of them actually participated little in the drafting of national legislation. The vast majority of members hardly ever spoke for or against the 44 bills brought to 8^th parliament.  

 

And the national elections of last month once again underlined the close connection that voters see between Members primary work—legislation, monitoring state work and steering the Ship of state, the MV Solomon Islander--and what is much more secondary—funding project proposals, welfare work and dispensing hand outs.

 

The 2010 election results speak for themselves. Half of the members of the former house never returned to Parliament. Normally, on average, 44% of members don't make it back to the House. This year, however, there was a major increase in members failing to make it back to their seats. 

 

It is early times for the 9^th Parliament. It can accept itself either as Servant to the people of this nation or continue down a road which has proven disastrous to many ex politicians.