Dear Sir,

Contributor, Derick R Manu'ari, did a good letter on DDP's Policy on NPF, which Solomon Times Online published.

He missed DDP's point by miles. I could not agree more that the NPF has inclusive provisions in the NPF Act to cater for all Solomon Islands people formally employed and those outside the formally employed sector.

DDP is simply asking what has stopped bringing in those in the non-formally employed sector to join?

If they are not in, as it is the case, it is due to one and one reason alone: NPF has failed tens of thousands of people to make them part of the savings scheme.

Fish don't come to you. You go after them.

Banking? What a laugh. I don't know whether Mr.Manu'ari read a recent letter in the newspaper on the rural banking. In that letter, a father in north Malaita told of how he had been putting money in his account and those of his children.

He got the shock of his life when he went to check the balance on the savings which he faithfully put in.

There was nothing in any and all of the accounts. His deposits were all eaten up by interest and other charges that banks impose on all of us.

No the banks won't do,mate.

As I said in my letter, Isaac Newton, the Englishman inventor asked WHY an apple fall.

DDP simply says: Why not.

Why should the people of Solomon Islands be denied an opportunity to save for their future?

As for the assertion that this was made to attract voters, well I don't know about that.

If there's one thing that makes DDP stand apart, it is that rather than producing volumes of policy intentions, DDP simply identified the issues and the solutions to address them.

No other Party has done so. The reason Mr. Manu'ari has raised this is because he, like his followers, has a mind set to continue with the past.

Perhaps, and I underline perhaps, he has outlived his usefulness? And that it is time to make a break with the past?


S Alfred Sasako
Brisbane