Economic Opportunities for Women in the Pacific - Case - IFC

of the operations theatre in the National Referral Hospital)
Marilyn doubted her ability to work in such a different
environment. “I couldn’t see how I could go from the
operations theatre into business,” Marilyn recalled. “I didn’t
even know how to use the fax!”
Tele provided the initial finance for the store and gave
invaluable advice and mentoring to her sister-in-law.
Whenever Marilyn had questions or needed assistance, Tele
was available for help. “I ask her questions all the time,”
Marilyn admits.
Going for Growth: Obstacles and Opportunities
The riots haven’t been the only troubles faced by the two
sisters. Bulk Store and Frangipani Ice utilize foreign markets
to keep their prices low. As a result, the two businesses
deal extensively with Customs and Inland Revenue. These
two departments, plagued by disorganization and poor
communication, often end up making mistakes that cost
the two businesses dearly.
Customs have a new electronic broking system which
could assist with her issues, but Customs continues to
utilize the old manual system. In 2007 and 2008, with
donor assistance, Solomon Islands introduced PC Trade,
an automated entry processing system. PC Trade went
operational on 1 April 2008 and made some improved
changes to processing times. However, the Solomon Islands
Customs and Excise Division experienced a massive server
collapse which affected PC Trade and Customs has had to
revert to manual processing on numerous occasions, which
has resulted in lengthy delays. Donors are currently assisting
to upgrade the servers. Solomon Islands is also reviewing
its Customs and Excise Act to allow for a more effective
introduction of automated systems.
Tele has not yet benefited from improved processing
times at customs and is determined to get this fixed. She
has written letters, called often and continues to visit the
relevant parties when there are unreasonable delays in
processing her imports. However, Tele admits, “it must be
daunting for most Solomon Islands women.”
Indeed, Marilyn may have once been intimidated by these
duties. However, with the strong advice and support given
to her by Tele, this has changed. It is this element, beyond
Economic Opportunities for Women in the Pacific
the bravery of defending hard work during a riot and
struggling to build a business from the ground up, that
is central to Marilyn’s success. It was only with guidance
and mentoring from Tele that she was able to become a
successful business owner in Honiara. “I really look up to
Tele and I am thankful to her,” Marilyn said. “I don’t know
how I would have the confidence to do it without her.”
A number of changes have been introduced pertaining
to goods taxation in the past year in the hope of making
goods taxes on imports more efficient. However, Tele is
yet to see an improvement and some aspects are actually
becoming increasingly difficult.
“We are having some real difficulty with customs now,”
says Tele. She explains that a tax exemption that had
previously been organized with Bulk Shop meant that
the payment of taxes for all imports for the business was
postponed for a month after the shipment arrived. This
enabled the profit from the sales to be directed toward
paying the taxes. This was a broad policy across all of
Bulk Shop’s imports but it has now changed so that only
some goods are exempt while others are not. “Goods we
sell a lot of, like oil, water, and salt are not exempt,” Tele
explains. This is further complicated by how long it takes
to sell these products. “These products are not sold very
quickly, it may take three or four months to sell a shipment
and considering the tax is due first this is incredibly difficult
to manage, especially for book keeping” Tele says. “This up
front payment is to make sure everyone is honest with their
payments, however we were always honest.”
Next Steps Tele continues to push Bulk Store to become
more efficient and affordable. Tele’s goals for this year are
to increase sales and source rice for the store that is 10
percent cheaper than SolRice, the main importer of rice in
Solomon Islands. It controls most of the market due to its
large volume of imports however Tele is setting herself up
to compete in this difficult area of the Solomon Islands’
market, by importing rice from cheaper Asian providers.
Tele brought in the first shipment of the new rice in March
2009, starting with three containers and organized tastings
at the main market to introduce her new product.
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