A few days from now 2016 and all its memories would fade into the annals of history.

And as we reflect on the year, there’s no doubt 2016 was a great year. One way or the other an event in 2016 had touched us, some deeply others not so deeply. But they did leave some lasting memories – memories that should help us to be strong in our resolve to go on in life.

it is my fervent hope that whatever we remembered of 2016 would help us put to good use the lessons we have learned in the last 12 months.

Buried in history are great lessons that should help us live a better life. Let me illustrate an event that not only had destroyed so many lives, it had changed the course of history in living memory.

In August of 1945, the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by atomic bombs. We know very little about the progress made by the people of that land during the past 69 years.

Today, seventy-one years on, questions are being asked as to what had caused long term destruction – was it the A-bomb or the Government welfare programs created to buy the votes of those who want someone to take care of them?

Of course Japan does not have a welfare system. Its position is, “Work for it or do without.” Japan’s position is summarised in the five (5) statements which appear below.

They are possibly the five (5) best statements you’ll ever read. All are applicable to Japan’s social experiment and hold out great lessons for our nation.

 

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity;

 

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving;

 

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else;

 

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it! and

 

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

Solomon Islands face this dilemma today. Before it destroys us, corrective measures must be taken by government. For it is the considered view of this commentary that the foregoing five statements are the sum total of the challenges we, as a nation, face in 2017 and beyond.

Government must take the lead.

There is no doubt in my mind that the beginning of the end for this nation in terms of development is the uncontrolled free flow of money from Taiwan. It is destroying this nation. It makes people lazy. It makes people dependent. It makes people expect something for which they do not have to work. It is paralysing the nation.

If there’s a challenge for Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s government, it is how the free money from Taiwan ought to be handled. Right now, more than 35 per cent of the population has been hooked on the free money. More will join soon. The question we need to ask ourselves is, Is it good for us? Is it good for the nation? Is it good for our young people?

Even a casual observer can see this happening. This nation is dying from within. The challenge for the DCC Government is to instil a sense of value in what people get from what they do. Unearned Money is money with no value.

One of the reasons why Constituents keep coming back to their elected MPs day in, day out, is because they know the money has little value. Why? Only money earned has value. Money given freely has no value. They forget that the money they are getting for granted is money earned by others – in this case, the taxpayers of Taiwan.

Solomon Islands people must be made to learn to earn their keep. On that note, I think the time has come to change the mordus operandi of how aid money from Taiwan in particular is used in Solomon Islands.

Let’s stop playing with people’s lives