The Solomon Islands government's monetary and fiscal policies have been criticised as favouring the rich.
The Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation reports that the Parliamentary Opposition spokesman for Finance, Edward Huniehu, says the prime minister is using the appointment of secretaries to secure the government's hold on power.
Manasseh Sogavare appointed 10 political secretaries and Mr Huniehu says they will cost the tax payers about half a million US dollars a year.
He says the money for them was not budgeted in the 2007 national budget and will only divert money elsewhere from the government's so-called bottom-up-approach development policy.
