by Georgina Maka’a
A former Honiara City Council (HCC) mayor has been ordered to return a council vehicle he has illegally kept for nearly five years after leaving office in 2021.
In a judgement delivered Tuesday this week, Principal Magistrate Michael Fagani ruled that HCC is the lawful owner of vehicle MC1521 and ordered Wilson Mamae to hand it back to the Council by 4:30pm on the same day.
Mamae was in office for about two years before he was ousted in mid 2021 in a vote of no-confidence over allegations of corruption and weak leadership.
The ruling to return the vehicle followed a trial that proceeded in his absence after neither he nor his lawyer appeared in court despite the matter having been adjourned three times previously.
Invoking Rule 12.24(b) of the Solomon Islands Courts (Civil Procedure) Rules 2007, Magistrate Fagani granted leave for HCC’s lawyer to proceed with the hearing without Mamae.
The Council called only one witness, City Clerk Justus Denni, who relied on sworn statements and documentary evidence to establish the Council’s ownership of the vehicle.
Central to the case was whether the vehicle belonged to HCC or whether the former mayor had acquired ownership after leaving office.
After examining the evidence, Fagani found that the vehicle’s certificate of registration and third-party insurance both identified Honiara City Council as the registered owner.
Fagani said these documents provided clear proof of ownership and noted there was no evidence whatsoever showing Mamae had ever become the legal owner.
“HCC is the owner of the vehicle (MC1521),” the magistrate ruled.
The court also rejected any suggestion that former city mayors automatically become owners of official vehicles once they leave office.
“I did not see any law or regulation that provides for such practice,” Fagani stated.
The magistrate said Mamae had been allowed to use the vehicle only for official duties while serving as Mayor.
The court heard that HCC had previously offered to sell the vehicle to Mamae for SBD50,000, but he neither accepted the offer nor paid for the vehicle.
Instead, he continued to retain possession after leaving office despite repeated requests from the Council to return it.
The magistrate ruled that his continued possession of the vehicle was unlawful.
The court also dismissed Mamae’s counterclaim seeking reimbursement for money allegedly spent repairing and maintaining the vehicle.
Magistrate Fagani found that HCC’s Vehicle Use Policy requires all repairs and maintenance to be authorised by the Council’s Works Manager before any work is carried out.
There was no evidence that such approval had been obtained.
Magistrate Fagani further ruled that because the repairs were carried out after Mamae had ceased to be Mayor, they were unauthorised and could not be recovered from the Council.
In reaching that conclusion, Magistrate Fagani referred to an earlier High Court decision involving unauthorised repairs to a government vehicle, saying the same legal principle applied.
