THE Prime Minister Hon Manasseh Sogavare admitted to Parliament last week that the move to deregulate Commodities Export Marketing Authority (CEMA) was a mistake.

Sogavare made the statement on the floor of Parliament in response to a supplementary question raised by the Member of Parliament (MP) for Small Malaita, Hon Rick Hou, on the policy objective and regulatory function of CEMA.

The initial query was made by the MP for Aoke Langalanga, Hon Mathew Wale questioning the progress in re-establishing CEMA.

Supervising Minister of Commerce, Industry, Labor and Immigration, Hon Manasseh Maelanga, told Parliament that CEMA remains one of the main policy objectives of the Democratic Coalition for Change Government (DCCG).

Maelanga added that the Ministry is working closely with the Cabinet Subcommittee that was established to purposely see to the re-opening of CEMA.

Parliament was informed that a series of provincial consultations have already been carried out and the most recent one held in Honiara would then lead up to the formulation of a report that would be taken to Cabinet for further progression.

Prime Minister Hon Sogavare then responded to the supplementary question raised by Hon Hou saying the Government is turning the wheel and heading towards a serious shift in the way past Governments have done things since 2006.

Sogavare added that they have listened to a series of State Owned Enterprises to work on readjustments and reform programmes after their deregulations.

“We found serious gaps to implement these policies and projects and there is now a move to empowering rural people to participate in export orientated activities,” Sogavare said.

The Prime Minister told Parliament that it is possible to revive CEMA and that the Government will work closely on the market side of the strategy as this is what has been dubbed the shortfall.

This he added can only be solved once the gap is filled between producers and the market.

He then said “We made a big mistake to deregulate the whole thing” and that people are encouraged to venture into such activities; yet tactics to market their commodities lacks significantly.

Whilst past Governments have emphasized rural development as part of their policy priorities, Prime Minister Hon Manasseh Sogavare admitted that very little has been thus far.

The Prime Minister told Parliament that over the past two years, monetary allocation for rural development was well over $SBD300 million and is likely to increase every year.

Therefore, the situation to date is crucially based on ‘situation analysis’ to see where CEMA is at and the report compiled will be brought to Cabinet to direct the Subcommittee (taskforce) on the best way to revive CEMA.