MMF CALLS FOR GAZETTING OF CDF BILL
MMF President Charles Dausabea. Photo: SIBC.
The Malaita Ma’asina Forum is calling on the government of Prime Minister, Gordon Darcy Lilo to gazette the Constituency Development Fund Bill.
MMF President, Charles Dausabea told freelancer George Atkin, although Parliament approved in 2013 the CDF Bill, the government is yet to gazette the bill resulting in the officials of the Ministry of Rural Development being unable to enforce it.
The parliamentary approval of the CDF Bill paves the way for officials of the Ministry of Rural Development to process payments being requested by Members of Parliament to ensure proper keeping of records of how funds are being expended.
Mr Dausabea claims the Lilo Government intentionally doesn’t want to put on gazette the CDF bill to allow MPs to continue use the CDF as a discretionary fund.
And he says enforcing the bill could also result in 90 percent of the 50 MPs being taken to court for conversion because they fail to comply with it.
Mr Dausabea says the MMF wonders why the government took the bill to parliament if it didn’t intend to have it put on gazette in the first place.