FijiFirst MP Faiyaz Koya says in today's atmosphere with the advent of social media there has to be a checks and balances while Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad says he is quite amused at the contribution from the other side in regards to the fact they were all beneficiaries of a dictatorship in this country.
While opposing the repealing of the Media Act, Koya says Fiji is still a developing country and they will be a testament to this as this is not an argument that started today, this is an argument that started from the 1970’s.
The Opposition MP also says in this day and age they need to have limitations because there are so many different ways to do things via the media.
Professor Prasad says Koya says there was no sinister motive in bringing the Media Decree, in fact dictators do that, they muzzled the media, created fear in the media fraternity and that law has remained.
The Deputy Prime Minister says when he was in the opposition for 8 years they were terrorised by some media that became the propaganda arm of the former government including the state broadcaster at the expense of the taxpayers of the country.
Professor Prasad says that other media were then hounded by the government.
When fijivillage News asked Koya to show evidence during the Opposition press conference, he did not provide evidence but said that former Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum can provide the evidence as he was at the Fiji Law Society conference where Koya claimed that the Media Act consultation was supposed to be done.
fijivillage News can confirm that there was no planned formal widespread Media Decree public consultation held by the previous government.
