Renbel embattled Premier opts for desparate measure

The Premier of Rennell and Bellona Province, Lence Tangosia, is going from one extreme case of accumulating a hotel bill of $4m in few months, which led to the resignation of four of his ministers, to asking the country's government to suspend his provincial executive government.

Remained with one supporter and still hang-on, Premier Tangosia

“Since they refused, I think the only option left is to seek the suspension of the provincial assembly,” he said in an interview with the country's daily newspaper, the Solomon Star today.

Tangosia told the newspaper that he made the request after four of his ministers who resigned recently refused to rejoin his minority government of two in a ten wards assembly.

The four former ministers were the same MPAs who had supported Tangosia during the March 2014 motion-of-no-confidence against him, which he had won by a vote of 6 to 4.

Premier Tangosia, who is a veteran provincial politician of over 20 years, said he wanted Minister Silas Tausinga to use his (legislative) powers to suspend the assembly because of the unresolved political upheaval.

This desperate tactic by the embattled premier is purely designed to deny the four renegade Members of the Assembly (MPA) of joining forces with two MPAs in the Opposition bench to form a new Provincial government.

Premier Tangosia's move has the potential to prevent and stall the process of any new government from investigating his alleged forging of landowners' signatures in East and Central Rennell to give an Indonesian mining company and current financier an access license and also granting licenses for Asian companies to log in Rennell Island under back door dealings and without proper procedures.

Since toppling former Premier George Tuhaika in a motion-of-no-confidence in March 2013, Premier Tangosia has alleged to misuse over $1.5m (SID) government grants to the Province and lately accused of accumulating a $4m (SID) bill at Heritage Park Hotel in Honiara at the expense of the Indonesian mining company.

The above cases are amongst the many alleged corruption cases against Premier Tangosia, prior and after becoming the Premier of the Province in March 2013.

The hotel bill, the first of its kind in the history of the country, was initially reported as paid by the company on behalf of the Premier for renting two rooms and hosting daily drinking and dinner parties for his friends in the hotel for almost three months.

Sources claimed that beside Premier Tangosia's hotel bill, a number of senior government officials from the Ministry of Mine and Energy and a lawyer were all accommodated at the same hotel during the same time at the expenses of the Indonesian mining company.

In a media report carried by the Rennell and Bellona Provincial Social Media Forum, a source closed to Premier Tangosia and his former MPAs claimed that the embattled premier had offered $250,000 (SID) each for the four MPAs to rejoin his group.

But following their refusal last week, Premier Tangosia said he would only step down if they take him to court. His latest move is an expected twist in a saga that reveales the tarnished reputation of the Premier and his desperation to hold on to power, which denies the people of the province any descent government services.