Dear Editor, Kia Orana. Once upon a time, democratic principles meant that the people told their elected Members of Parliament what they wanted and this actually worked. Recently the “people” presented a petition to Parliament, signed by many individuals, telling the Government that they do not wish to see the imposition of water meters and charges … Simple! Democracy in action!

PM Mark Brown immediately responds and tells the people that not only is the petition dubious because he claims many outsiders/unqualified people signed, but that water charges would go ahead anyway in one form or another. Wow! That is the PM dictating to the iti tangata what they will get! No if’s no buts. Not much Democratic choice there!

What the PM is also conveniently forgetting, is that he and his predecessor were largely responsible for setting up the entire fiasco that the Rarotonga water “improvement” scheme was meant to resolve. Little or no oversight of the original contractor’s work and standards. A number of well-meaning locally employed whistleblowers tried to tell the government where the faults were, only to be shouted down, and indeed threatened with expulsion from the island. He (the PM) will of course blame his various Ministries; however, the fact of the matter is that an initial contract for some $30 million or so was signed by Government … this blew out big time to some $60 million, then $90 million, and now sits around $120 million (the Financial Secretary may try to dispute this). And it’s still far from finished. Yes, clean water as the PM points out but still not potable water.

So you Mr. PM are now largely responsible for this mess, and now trying to lay the cost of this debacle straight on to the taxpayers, who according to the government’s own Texas consultant, are already paying through their taxes. TTV started with a small office staff, but now has blown out to goodness knows how many staff, as well as a ridiculous number of vehicles, most of which were donated to TTV by generous but blind and perhaps misguided donor nations.

So this entire problem was started by a government and its Ministries that did not watch what was going on, sat back on their hands, claiming huge salaries, and now that the proverbial has hit the fan, the arrogant PM wants the poor iti tangata to foot the bill for all the ongoing Governmental stuff ups.  
If there was a snap election called right now, Mark Brown would be voted out of office.

(Name and address supplied)