DEAR EDITOR, much has been reported about the Ministry of health 10 million scandal, some have been arrested and others are still on the radar.

Whatever actions that such individuals have been implicated of, they deserve the right to be heard and defend themselves.

They are still innocent and until proven guilty in the court of law.

Hence, the Solomon star unfairly reported on a magistrate court case of a Malaitan contractor for double dipping of the Tulagi mini hospital contract on issue no 6468.

This particular Solomon Star reporter has failed to balance her reporting on this case as this was still an allegation issue.

The reporter has conclusively presented her view side seen to be culminating to a direct defamation, which is the reason for our response.

First and foremost, we will ensure that this direct humiliation and insult by the Solomon Star reporter will not go unchallenged in whatever means necessary for bringing such disrepute to us the targeted contractor and our legitimate company.

I’m really surprised how come the Solomon Star reporter fails to distinguish between cases that are of allegation nature and cases that are not.

 

This case before the courts was for the allegation that Vast view construction has defraud the state for over charging the employer (Ministry of health) on the cost of freighting and chartering of the building materials to the building site.

The allegation was that these charges surpassed and exceeded the allocated amount on the contract agreement for mobilisation.

But the truth as was later revealed by the responsible officers in the Ministry of Health Tender Board (MTB) and the CTB (central Tender Board) that the necessary cost for shipping was not included in the stipulated contract agreement.

Evidently, whose wrong was that?

The employer, who instructs us on what to do or us, the employee, who just does and fulfills all the necessary processes and requirements?

Whatever discrepancies that we’ve been caught in between are the very reason that this case was placed before the courts to prove that.

 

I challenge those who have these misconceptions about us and those that tarnished our good name to know that;

1. The vast view construction has fulfilled all legal processes with the Ministry of Health and Central Tender Board before being awarded this project.
2. All payments payable to our company has gone through all the financial management processes of the responsible ministry and authorities and had been duly approved.
3. This project has been into its final stage of completion (Finishing stage). It was progressively assessed and verified by the responsible ministry that our company has completed the progressive scheduled work within the required time frame.
4. The employer (Ministry of health) still owe us more than $1 million for the final payment of the project as stipulated in the contract agreement.

This payment has been halted due to the shipping issue of more than $700,000 disclosed to be siphoned between the implicated officers of Ministry of health and MoFT and us the contractor.

5. The alleged amount was a mobilisation payment for materials, cost of shipping and initial payment for labour.
6. Instructions from the employer was duly followed and fulfilled, a breached of the contract agreement needs to be proven if there is/are any elements of “double dipping”.
7. The question of whose fault is in the making? If there were discrepancies identified by the employer within its framework processes, why proceed on with the alleged contractor? Why wait till the last stage and why not release our payments due to the work done to the progressive stages?

 

These are the questions that the Solomon Star reporters need to dig deeper to find out if you are genuinely scraping to cover the truth.

Why not get our side of the story to balance your reporting before jumping the print?

 

FRANCIS USULI

LAU VALLEY