Opposition MP, Sanjay Kirpal has called out the Coalition Government for spending more than $2 million of taxpayers' funds on Commission of Inquiry reports when people in charge fail to appoint the right individuals to key positions.
Kirpal highlighted this while opposing the 2025/2026 National Budget and said a large number of recently graduated doctors have not been posted yet, even though there is a shortage of doctors in Fiji.
Kirpal says the Government charters flights to Israel, which cost approximately $2.3 million, but can't fix roads, water problems, and provide better medical facilities to our people.
Kirpal further says that the government needs to replace the low-lying bridges with high-rise structures to facilitate the poor farmers and their children who struggle to come to school during rainy days. He says that during the rainy days, it causes transportation problems, which leads to a loss of revenue for farmers.
He and these are economic losses like loss of quality teaching time and safety risks.
Kirpal says this is almost a similar capital budget for FRA compared to the 2024-2025 fiscal year.
He says maintaining a similar budget for the FRA as in previous years without a real increase poses a significant risk to road safety, economic productivity, and infrastructure resilience, and this will result in serious shortfalls, funds exhausted, early backlogs growing, and urgent maintenance deferred.
Kirpal says this may be one of the reasons for poor service delivery in the infrastructure sector as we have seen poor road conditions all around the country.
Kirpal adds that the Coalition Government has been hoping for investments, but how can it be possible when they cannot facilitate the pipe, water, EFL supply and sewer system to new upcoming subdivisions in Nadawa.
He says that if Fiji needs to curb the rise of informal settlements, then subdivisions of this magnitude need to be encouraged as the infrastructure provider is the government of the day.
