The Solomon Islands Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SICCI) says it is concerned with the current road situation/condition affecting traffic from the East, Central Honiara City, and the Western end of the city. 

“As the organization responsible for the private sector in the Solomon Islands, SICCI is raising its members’ concern to the caretaker government on the impact the current road situation is having on the businesses and the general population,” a SICCI statement said.

“SICCI Members are very concerned about the lack of communication on timelines and updates of the work impacting traffic and proactive mitigation by key stakeholders to ensure that the impact on traffic does caused disruption to businesses,” the statement added.

SICCI, with the help of its members has identified the following challenges due to the current road dilemma;:

1. The roads situation at present is impacting both the general public and businesses with regards to logistics where time needed to do business is lessen due to the long queues contributing to traffic jams because of the conditions of the roads.

2.  Staff are finding it difficult to travel to work in timely manner which affects operations and timely delivery of services or goods to respective clients.

3. Assistance rendered by the police in the effort to move traffic is not effective as motors concerned over vehicle conditions and to avoid wear and tear from having to drive continuously on the current road conditions, motors still will choose to drive carefully then with speed. Improvement of the road conditions is paramount to move traffic at an efficient speed.

4. This is not a good image for Honiara City as investors will have to take into consideration on logistics to make decision either to invest or not in Solomon Islands because of the current road conditions.

5. In general, the road situation/condition proves to make it difficult for businesses to operate in meeting deadlines, and progressing businesses

6.Figures show, with regards to the progress on the road construction in Honiara City that potential impact on businesses are as follows;

•98% of SICCI Businesses affected

•75% impact on their sales and revenue

•67% are very dissatisfied with communication and updates provided by authorities 

“SICCI would like to see an improvement on the management of the road situation to improve traffic movement in and around time. 

“The situation is showing the general public, private sector and international visitors that responsible authorities are not capable or under staff to deal with the current situation. 

“Therefore, SICCI requests response must be given with regards to this issue.”

SICCI’s statement came after the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Infrastructure (MID) Stephen Maesiola caused public outrage with statements he made in an interview with Tavuli News.

Maesiola, who drives a tax-payers’ funded car, said:

“The potholes are not that big. We should just drive over them.

“It’s when we try to avoid the potholes that resulted in the long queues.”

Honiara motorists took Maesiola’s statement as an insult and called for his sacking.

They argued Maesiola does not felt the pain vehicle owners are going through because his car is serviced by tax-payers.

Work to rebuild the west side road from Honiara City Council to White River has already started.

Asian Development Bank (ADB) is funding the project.–