Officers from the Totogo Police Station were called in to assist the staff and security officers of New World IGA in Suva in enforcing social distancing outside the supermarket.
New World IGA Operations Manager Maria Kumar says they were informing people to maintain social distancing outside as they were very strict about this inside the supermarket.
Kumar says there is a police officer who is based there to enforce this.
She says they had faced the same problem in their supermarket in Valelevu, but it has been maintained now with the help of their security personnel.
Kumar says they had maintained social distancing inside the supermarket and were only allowing 40 to 45 people at a time.
Carpenters Fiji Limited Director and General Manager, Kunaseelan Sabaratnam says apart from recordings and sanitation exercise being carried out, customers would need to do their part of social distancing.
He says the issue has been the lockdown from the 1st of this month and that is the busy time for the Food Voucher Programme recipients.
Sabaratnam says these recipients have all come out at one time.
Today, people were not practicing social distancing outside two supermarkets in Valelevu and one in Suva while social distancing is being strictly enforced outside Max Value and Extra Supermaket in Flagstaff and Max Value opposite the Suva Market.
We visited these supermarkets this morning.
Legend FM News saw both the young and old not practicing social distancing.
Police officers are present outside these supermarkets and asking people to maintain a 2 metre distance.
The situation in the Valelevu supermarket was the most concerning.
Many of those lining up were elderly people who received their monthly social welfare benefit today.
The line of people stretched for about 100 metres.
