Government has no national reconciliation budget: Fr Ngalihesi

 

The DCC Government has never allocated any funds for national reconciliation and the rehabilitation of ex-militants, Father Patterson Ngalihesi – the man once put in charge of the Government’s rehabilitation programme has revealed.

“As a matter of fact, a budget prepared by the Ministry of Peace and Reconciliation for our work was rejected outright last year,” Fr Ngalihesi told Island Sun in an exclusive interview yesterday.

In the interview, the Anglican Priest made startling revelations about how lack of qualified personnel that filled the Ministry of Peace and Reconciliation as well as the Office of the Prime Minister, caused delays to move things forward.

“No one has the necessary qualifications. When I looked at their qualifications, I said to myself, no wonder nothing was moving forward,” Fr Ngalihesi said.

He told Island Sun he brought up these matters with the government shortly after he took up his appointment as peace and reconciliation consultant in November/December 2015.

Fr Ngalihesi who has since been terminated on the basis of cost-cutting, holds a Master’s degree in reconciliation and peace-building from Otago University, New Zealand – one of two Master’s degrees he has under his quiver (belt).

“It was on the basis of my recommendation that a National Reconciliation Committee (NRC) was established. At the same time I had ‘opened the door’ for government officials to attend the necessarily peace and reconciliation training in Fiji as well as in the Philippines at very little cost to the government,” he said.

“In Fiji for example, the participants paid only $300 in tuition fees per student. Every other cost was picked up by the UNDP,” Fr Ngalihesi said.

“Of course after all this, the obvious question was, what’s next?” he said.

Fr Ngalihesi said under his leadership, the Ministry was able to complete a traditional ceremony known as RASI in July last year.

He said the ceremony ended hatred ex-militants once had towards ex-militants from other provinces.

“RASI is the most sacred traditional ceremony on Guadalcanal. Once it’s performed, it ends everything from hatred to bloodshed. It is over and above the normal chupus,” he said.

Fr Ngalihesi said now he’s not sure what programme Prime Minister Sogavare is pursuing, especially now that he has engaged ex-militants to collect weapons still out in the community.

“There really is no design or context in what is happening today. It is my hope that people are not being misled in all this,” Fr Ngalihesi said.