HONOURABLE Rick Hou thinks the Child and Family Welfare Bill 2016 gives too much authority to the Director.

The Member of Parliament for Small Malaita made the statement in his contribution to the Bill on the floor of Parliament yesterday.

“While I appreciate this is handling and proper management, I fear that this could result by neglect of the law.

“Firstly, if we have to have everything, and every decision having to be made by one person, the likelihood of this one person not being able to deal with these matters adequately and on a timely fashion cannot be downplayed.

“Sir, this fear is not an unsubstantiated fear,” said Hon Rick Hou.

Hon Hou added that in many Government offices, and the public service generally, even a simple response to a letter takes ages to write.

“In some government offices the telephone switch boards are not manned.

“This is the current level of work output and standards that exists in public service.

“Should we expect this to improve after this Bill is passed? I think we will be fooling ourselves to expect that,” Hou strongly added.

The MP for Small Malaita told Parliament yesterday said given these challenges, “we have to be very practical about this.

“Even if the Director was the most capable and most efficient person, it will be impossible to expect him/her to deal will phone calls and requests to attend to every case throughout this country.”

He then added that more seriously, he fears that people and groups who are already actively involved in attending to the needs of children and families under various emergency situations in this country, may refrain from their activities.

“As we know there are already many people and groups (mostly faith-based groups) that are operating in this matter – most of whom are operating actively and on a volunteer basis.

“The fear is that they may discontinue their activities when this Bill is passed, because of the legality of their activities,” Hou said.

Hon Rick Hou then suggested that unless we employ a comprehensive and persistent nation-wide campaign and public awareness programme on this Bill, he fears we might face these predicted problems.