NFP wants govt to create a Workers Solidarity Fund

The National Federation Party says the government must immediately create a Workers Solidarity Fund from the $18 million aid provided by the Australian Government and provide immediate help to the thousands of unemployed workers and their families.

In a statement, Party Leader Professor Biman Prasad says it must be noted that the Australian aid is especially for COVID-19 assistance and right now the most vulnerable are the workers, particularly in the tourism and related sectors.

He said the government must keep pumping the Solidarity Fund from all savings accumulated through the 5% reduction in Fiji National Provident Fund employer contribution from the already budgeted civil service allocation.

Prasad says the party has been inundated with calls by workers and their families are requesting them to highlight their plight and the NFP's survey has shown the workers and their families are the hardest hit.

He says the workers need immediate assistance as they have exhausted either $500 or $1,000 that they withdrew from their FNPF account.

Prasad says they see that in the 2019-20 Budget Estimate around $1.04 billion has been allocated for civil service salaries and wages.

He says a 5% reduction in FNPF contribution means the government will annually save $52 million.

The NFP Leader says this equates to savings of $4.33 million per month so already government has saved $4.33 million for the month of April and by the end of May will have accumulated savings of $8.66 million.

Prasad says these savings should be disbursed to the workers because it is the workers money and it should not be used to fund operational or any other expenditure of the government.

He says they see that countries whose economies and GDP are much smaller than Fiji’s are directly assisting workers.

Prasad adds, for example, Vanuatu with a GDP of around $2 billion is assisting employees through stabilisation payments as part of its COVID-19 stimulus package.

He also says Fiji has a GDP of over $11.4 billion but Government is asking unemployed workers to uplift their FNPF Funds and has decided in respect of tourism sector workers to only top the FNPF withdrawal by $500.

Prasad says the government knows very well that 69% or over 303,000 of FNPF members have balances of less than $10,000 in their FNFP account and they wouldn’t even have replenished it after withdrawing $1000 following Severe TC Winston in 2016.

The NFP Leader says it is absolutely necessary that Government looks after the most vulnerable and it has the means to do so.

He says any kind and caring government’s responsibility is to cushion the impacts of any crisis on its citizens.

Prasad stresses that direct assistance to workers and families affected by the crisis will also help generate economic activities and help businesses keep afloat.

He says the government must keep informing the people on the amount of funds accumulated in the COVID-19 special account for the sake of transparency and accountability.