The Budget is a fair and inclusive one – Nadi Chamber of Commerce and Industry

The Nadi Chamber of Commerce and Industry welcomes the announcement of the 2025/2026 National Budget, stating that it is quite a fair and inclusive one.

President Lawrence Kumar says the new budget outlines essential initiatives that have emerged from a comprehensive public dialogue process with various targeted groups.

Kumar says the new budget prioritises tackling socio-economic challenges while also maintaining macroeconomic stability.

He also says he was glad about measures taken to support the average family in areas such as a reduction of VAT from 15 percent to 12.5 percent while maintaining that the government needs to exercise prudent reductions to avoid revenue losses and have a balance on reductions on VAT to ensure government operations are not heavily affected due to lack of revenue collected if VAT is heavily reduced.

The businessman says other sectors, such as the Ministry of Public Works, which is allocated $800 million in the new financial year, with the Fiji Road Authority taking $388 million, and the Water Authority of Fiji $284 million is going to help the economy grow and create employment as well.

He also highlighted that it is encouraging to see that other major sectors such as health have been prioritised with an increase from $451.8 million to $611.6 million, with the continuation of a free medical scheme with $10 million dedicated to these schemes.

He adds this is a substantial increase from last year's budget.

He says the bus fare reduction by 10 percent is going to assist the general public in daily travel while having a social benefits increase of five percent from last year is surely a plus point as well.

Kumar adds housing assistance for first-time homebuyers, with those earning $0 to $50,000 annually getting a $30,000 grant, and the first-time land purchase getting $20,000 for a first-time buyer as well.

He adds such initiatives would surely promote home ownership.

He says the announcement of an 8.75 percent interest payment to FNPF members remains quite positive and will boost confidence amongst members.

The President says it is quite a huge increase because such a substantial payment of 8.75 percent has not been made in many years.

He says this is one of those very key initiatives and key outcomes out of this budget to the FNPF members.

In terms of revenue, Kumar says the projected revenue collection is projected at $3.9 billion, with an expected projected expenditure of $4.8 billion, a deficit of $886 million.

He says the deficit is relatively high, but he understands where the government is coming from with the global crisis upon us and the ever-increasing cost of freight, the government needs to take such bold initiatives to assist the average income earner and assist the citizens of Fiji.

He stressed that huge allocations to respective ministries come with huge responsibilities, so respective ministries and respective ministers need to ensure that the budgets are always managed and implemented with the highest level of accountability.

He says the respective ministries have a huge duty on their hands.

Kumar says at the end of the day, respective ministries and government agencies should ensure that they are able to implement and monitor effectively their budget to ensure that the funds that are allocated are put to good use.

The President adds that there is a need to ensure that services are delivered to the people and there is no mismanagement of finances that are dedicated under respective government agencies.