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Solomon Business Magazine
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Tovosia, why the delay in answering our questionsStatement by Axiom CEO, Ryan MountIt was two weeks ago that the Caretaker Minister for Mines and Member for East Guadalcanal Bradley Tovosia held a press conference in the Prime Minister’s Office, where he stated that if I, Ryan Mount, do not apologise for calling him corrupt, he will immediately take me to court for defamation. Well, it is now two weeks since the silly press conference and still nothing from Tovosia. Mr Tovosia, when do we get to go to court? I am looking forward to defending myself and also proving why you have behaved corruptly. The hard working and good people of the Minerals Board and the Ministry of Mines deserve to see this presented and debated in court in front of a judge. For it is some of these people that you have been inappropriately pressuring to do things that are against the law. The people of Rennell also deserve to see this play out in the court, for it is they who are subjected daily to the problems caused by a massive ship wreck and an environmental disaster of oil leaking onto their reefs.And of course, the people the East Guadalcanal deserve to also bear witness to the court case as you are their Member of Parliament. Mr Tovosia, you have either wasted everyone’s time again and lied to us when you used the highest office of the Solomon Islands, the Prime Minister’s Office, to proclaim you will take me to court OR you are delaying filing this defamation claim so that there will not be enough time for the High Court to have a hearing date before 3 April, the National General Election Day, thereby preventing the constituents of East Guadalcanal sitting in court to hear the facts? Your constituents deserve better. I respectfully ask you to honour your word and file the defamation claim now. It is in the public interest and in your own interest to also ask the court to have this matter heard urgently. This is best done by issuing a Certificate of Urgency when you file the claim.It is now also over a week since you demanded me to bring my claims to the media. As you well know, I did that last week. I asked a number of questions which I and a growing number of people want answered. These included:1. Please confirm why you were traveling internationally with Robson Djokovic at a time when you are issuing a number of mineral rights whilst in caretaker mode?2. Please also let us know why you, as Minister, do not feel the need to bother doing your best to investigate the Rennell mining disaster? 3. Why at the time when Bintan were involved in the very serious mining and environmental disaster did your ministry find it more prudent to travel to Isabel with Bintan? As you know, Bintan were persuading Isabel landowners to give Bintan mineral rights in the presence of your officials and at the very same time that Bintan were involved in a serious mining and environmental disaster. Does this seem the right thing to do? 4. I also asked you last week to confirm to us all that you are not a puppet for others. You and your officials have told me and my staff that you were regularly being persuaded to do illegal things by Robson Djokovic. As you know we have recorded these conversations. So I asked you last week to confirm you are not a puppet doing the dirty work for other corrupt people. I look forward to you answering these clear and direct questions which you have asked me to present to the media. Please answer these. Any further delay in answering these questions leads me to suspect you are hiding something or you may be guilty of being involved in more corrupt activities.On other matters, I noticed that in your recent statements to the media you defended yourself for not taking action against Bintan because you say that this is the Ministry of Environment’s problem or authority. If we go back five years to 2014, that was when the Rennell Bauxite mine and APID were granted Development Consent, which is the approval from the Ministry of Environment for mining. (Bintan are the contractor for APID at the Rennell Bauxite mining disaster). There has been and there is now much more questions being asked as to how the Rennell Bauxite mine gained Development Consent on such a weak Environmental Impact Study (EIS) or Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). It is the EIA and the EIS that provides guidance on how to manage problems such as large ships coming close to shore to load and unload. It is sad now for everyone who is suffering from this environmental disaster that such a poor EIA and EIS were approved especially as the project is so close to a UNESCO World Heritage Listed site. There is a risk now the World Heritage status will be taken away from Solomon Islands. It is estimated that 60 tonnes of oil are leaking on to the beautiful coral reefs, there are sunken barges, there is a massive ship wreck ... this is an absolute disaster!So who was the Minister for Environment when the Rennell Bauxite mine and APID were granted the Development Consent? IT WAS YOU, MR TOVOSIA. Why have you been so silent on this? Are you avoiding telling the people of Solomon Islands that it was actually under your leadership of the Ministry of Environment that the Rennell Bauxite mine was given Environmental approval?!So we are clear: 1. You were the Minister for Mines when the shipwreck occurred and the mine was not and still not shut down; 2. You were the Minister for Mines who recently granted the largest ever sized mineral rights in Isabel Province to Bintan;3. You were the Minister for Environment in 2014 when the Rennell mine was granted Development Consent by the Ministry of Environment; and 4. You were Minister for Mines when you led a delegation, with Robson Djokovic, in May 2018 that travelled to Rennell Island to once again approve the Rennell Bauxite mine. There seems to be a familiar pattern between yourself, Bintan and disasters. Again, please answer the questions that you have asked me to send to the media. Do not cry about words that may hurt your feelings. Just answer the questions for the people of Rennell and the people of East Guadalcanal. They deserve to be told the truth. Former MP and caretaker minister of Mines Tovosia.
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