THIS is a reply to the newspaper article written by Charley Piringi on behalf of Mr Ezekiel Komana and his cronies.

Let me tell you Mr Piringi to first know your roots before making misleading statements in the media.

There are proper channels to take in-order to resolve your arguments. Do not tarnish others reputation in the media otherwise it backfires.

If you aren’t one of the land owners please stop being fooled by those crooks who are trying their very best to steal and commercialise our Tub) resources for their own gains.

Let me justify your arguments.

Historically, the Raerade Tribe claimed by Komana and his family tribe emerged recently in scene in 1991, there was none existence of this so-called tribe claimed by Komana in Isabel Province.

Only Terisa Jaejae Tribe represented by David Solt and Jonathan Simata has its originality dated back to a first disputed court case to which the decision in 1947 ruled in our favour.

Where were you 44 years after that 1947 court decision?

Mr Piringi and his self-claimed tribal leader Ezekiel Komana also claimed in the paper that they won the High Court Case dated September 26, 2016.

According to our tribal leaders we do not aware of any High Court Case on the September, we only aware of the High Court Case of June this year, to which that decision was about “Indemnity Cost”.

It states the legal costs that will borne by our party. It also states clearly that It was not about Landownership as what was claimed by Mr Komana.

Logically, should that High Court Decision took place on September as what was alluded by Charles, we should have a copy and that same copy supposed to be served to the Local Court to which it was not.

Piringi and Komana stop misleading the public, that same document that you were referring to had been strike –Out by the Local Court on October this year.

During that Local court case on October 18, 2016, the decision spells out clearly that Komana is not the rightful landowner of the disputed land.

He only has the right over a small strip of hill called Raerade and not the whole Terisa Jaejae Customary land boundary as claimed by him.

Mr Komana stop making false statements that drives your cronies to believe in you.

Due to lust of wealth your logging cronies were even more corrupt in manipulating the relevant authorities (Ministry of Environment and Forestry) to grant them (Pacific Logging Company, the Licensee and Komana) export license of Tubi logs. Are you above the law?

Again this raises another question on the legality of the decision by relevant authorities (Commissioner of Forests and the Director of Environments) to grant export license to the Pacific Logging Company, despite the Environmental Protection Act on Prohibited species (eg Tubi) not to be logged for commercialisation purposes.

Despite several High Court Injunction decisions ruled in our favour; the Pacific Logging Company and the Licensee continues to violate this Act since 2011 and grossly breached High Court Orders until recently with consignment of tubi logs shipped from Toutoru Log Pond ready to be exported.

We don’t see logic behind this decision because Landownership issue was not being addressed before issuing of licence was granted.

I cannot comprehend what kind of document you based your judgments and analysis on.

Therefore we will seek legal advice with relevant authorities to investigate the matter and justify the legality of their decision or whether the decision was lured by under-table dealings by loggers and those with upper authority.

We also question the legality of issuing of licence to non-indigenous person to log in our land.

Despite breaching several High Court Orders, nothing had been done to cancel the logging licence.

Was this Licensee’s licence immune to the supreme law of this country?

Does such behavior acceptable and entertained by the law of this country?

If so then the law is only designed to protect the interests of the elites and business classes.

It’s sad to note that there’s no law that protects the rights of the citizens of this country.

We the local indigenous landowners are always victims of loggers and corrupt officers within the relevant ministries ill and self-lust decisions who continue to undermine and contravene the National Constitution for their own gains.

May I strongly appeal to the Fraud Unit within the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force to investigate the matter within relevant Ministries and stop the corruption culture to intoxicate the entire system.

Let’s all work together to stop corruption in our beloved country. If we do not join forces, to stop such evil behaviour; with our very limited natural resource endowment we have, I don’t believe our economy will prosper in the near future if such illegal and unregulated harvesting of our natural resources persisted unsustainably.

We believe that in any democratic state, the state supposed to protect the welfare of its populace through its legislative and judicial systems; but the undercurrent happenings indicated the opposite.

Let us all be honest with our work and do things right for the benefit of our people in Solomon

Islands.

Be reminded that we will all be judged in the last days for what we had done.

There was a saying in the Bible that states: “Your Sins will find you out”.

Stop corruption activities now!

 

Ataban Juata