People who voted for change hoped for a transition to open, clean, democratic, and people-based governance, and they were committed to upholding the rule of law and good governance, but they haven’t received the transparency and accountability they wanted from the government.
This was highlighted by Fiji Labour Party Leader and former Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry during the party’s Annual Delegates Meeting in Nadi.
Chaudhry says the coalition government’s failure to honour their election promises; and to ignore the bread and butter issues is affecting people, coupled with its dismal record of governance in the past 2 years, have created a crisis of confidence and trust in the leadership.
He says strong, clean, open, good governance and visionary leadership are crucial to the progress and well-being of any nation.
The FLP Leader says the leadership of Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara in the 70s and early 80s is a good example of how a country can thrive under firm, competent and caring leadership.
He says Fiji is in urgent need of credible leadership.
He says the government made many promises to counter the suffering of the poor and to right the wrongs inflicted on the people under the FijiFirst rule.
Chaudhry says in the past two years we have watched it blunder from one crisis to another in a series of shocking scams that have literally rocked the nation.
The FLP Leader further says they have shown a worrying lack of vision and commitment to addressing critical problems faced by the nation.
Chaudhry says in their first National Budget the coalition government had imposed a 15 percent VAT on goods and services – increasing the cost of living and said this was necessary to pay the $10 billion debt from the previous government.
He says in 1999 the Labour government reduced the VAT on staple food items as a relief to the needy in our society.
Chaudhry says even Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka had admitted in May 2023 that 15 percent VAT was too high, unfortunately, he later caved in to pressure from his Finance Minister Professor Biman Prasad and the Chair of the Fiscal Review Committee.
Chaudhry says the second factor that makes the 15% VAT unacceptable to the people was the huge increase in parliamentary pay and allowances of the MPs.
He also questions if the ministers are motivated by personal greed and not the common good.
He adds the public perception today is of leaders who are self-serving, devoid of ethics and integrity, and oblivious to the needs and aspirations of the common people.
While responding to our questions, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Professor Biman Prasad says he wants to make it clear that there are three rates of VAT.
Professor Prasad says there's zero percent VAT on 21 basic food items and they have not only maintained that but also added prescribed medication in the list, making it 22 items.
He adds that additional revenue has gone to the needy and poor in the form of increased social welfare, back to school support, subsidies to farmers, increases in prices of sugar and rice, increase in the civil service pay and increase in minimum wages this is to assist the need of low income people.
The Fijian economy is now forecast to grow by 3.8 percent in 2024, an upward revision from the 2.8 percent projected in June this year.
Chair of the Macroeconomic Committee, Ariff Ali says underpinning the higher growth is the better-than-expected outturn in visitor arrivals, which grew by 6.3 percent in the year to September, almost twice the projected increase in arrivals, consumption spending has gathered pace, supported by higher incomes and remittances, tourism-driven demand, higher Government spending and the pickup in new lending.
Ali says investment activity continues to progress but at a slower than desired pace.
He says while labour shortages and ease of doing business processes are gradually improving, investors still face a relatively higher-cost environment, impacting both the completion of existing and commencement of new projects.
Economic growth for 2025 has now been upgraded to 3.4 percent from the 3.0 percent expected earlier.
The service and-related sectors remain the main contributors to growth, followed by industrial and primary sectors.
While natural disasters, elevated geopolitical tensions and further slowdown in trading partner economies pose downside risks; higher tourist arrivals from Dallas and new flight routes, pickup in sectoral production and greater stability in the business environment post-budget, as highlighted in the August 2024 Business Expectations Survey, could weigh positively on growth.
Ali says complementing the outcome are the expected slowdown in resident departures amid tighter immigration policies in source countries and productivity gains from imported labour.
In 2026 and 2027, economic growth is forecast to be 2.9 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively, with the economy reverting to its long-term growth rates.
The Committee also notes that based on the GDP report by the Fiji Bureau of Statistics.
The report indicates that outcomes in thirteen sectors are still below pre-pandemic levels as of 2023, which the Committee projects to note a gradual return over the near term.
On the positive side, eight sectors and the overall economy has already surpassed pre-pandemic levels in 2023.
Ali says although there are symptoms of improvement, we must remain agile to create an economic terrain to foster sustainable economic growth.
Stay tuned for the latest news on our radio stations
