Peace and reconciliation liaison officer and former Malaita Premier David Oeta describes the recent mini-survey carried out by the Malaita Maasina Forum as being "based on their personal agenda."

Speaking to the SIBC from Auki, Mr Oeta says that it was misleading to say that the second Malaita Leaders Summit in 2007 pushed the idea for Malaita to seek autonomy from the rest of Solomon Islands.

Mr Oeta says that being a key organizer of the two summits, "the 2004 summit made a resolution to break away from the Solomon Islands if the government failed to implement major projects in the province."

He says the 2007 summit "removed the resolution because the government had acted on some of the programmes during that period, although slow."

Mr Oeta says that the Maasina Forum had no mandate over those issues because they were never invited to be part of the summit nor mandated by the people of Malaita to do the work on their behalf.

He says the Malaita Maasina forum should "leave resolutions coming out of Malaita Leaders' meetings to the provincial and national governments to handle."


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