DEAR EDITOR, I refer to your article entitled, ‘Does treasure hunt hold the secret for balancing the 2017 budget?’ that appeared on Tuesday March 28, 2017 issue.

The article authored by Mr Alfred Sasako, claimed, in paragraph 23, that the Economic Association of Solomon Islands (EASI) was a party to signing a so-called final legal paper to end the case of locally owned Capital Investment Funds.

The author claimed to have received a text message from an unknown person.

The claim is false and sensational and EASI strongly asserts to what appears to be a duplicitous scheme that EASI is not in any way associate with any of the nonsense relating to this Treasure Hunt.

The author should have contacted us for verifying the false claim before reporting in the public domain and potentially damaging the reputation of our society.

EASI is a non-political organisation formed in 2001 under the charitable act.

It is a network of economists and development practitioners with the broad objective to promote and encourage the discussion of economic issues in the country and the furtherance of the study of this discipline.

Luke Forau

Chairman

Economic Association of Solomon Islands