There can be a lot of savings with better coordination - Catanasiga

There can be a lot of savings with better coordination with the government and this will take away some of the wastage.

Fiscal Review Committee Member and Executive Director of the Fiji Council of Social Services, Vani Catanasiga highlighted this during the fijivillage Straight Talk with Vijay Narayan.

Catanasiga says in the past few years, agencies were doing things that they were not mandated to do.

She says there is a lot of duplication in government programmes including those geared towards poverty alleviation.

She also says better coordination in the sense that different agencies talk about their plans can avoid duplication in the community.

Catanasiga adds agencies that were mandated and understood issues like vulnerability were concentrating on programmes established 20 or 30 years ago that were no longer relevant.

Catanisaga says agencies that have come into this field did not understand the issues and how the communities coped with them and communication being one of the issues caused a lot of wastage.

She says issues around waste management are concerning which could have been addressed in the last 16 years despite raising the issues.

She says there could be a lot of savings just with better coordination and they are also working to improve this.