We are not poor, we are mismeasured.
This is the message by Opposition MP and former Minister for Fisheries and Forest Semi Koroilavesau during his End of the Week Statement in Parliament on the factors for iTaukei development growth.
Koroilavesau says for too long, we have been told that we are resource-rich but cash poor - this is a colonial fiction, and its perpetuation is an injustice that has plagued our people for generations.
He says Dr. Ponipate Rokolekutu put it best when he said, "The land may be ours in name, but not in law, not in use, and not in truth."
The Opposition MP says we are landowners who are dispossessed and resource owners who lack the financial benefit of the very resources we perceive to own.
He adds that we are a people with great wealth in our lands and our traditions, yet a people who struggle with poverty metrics and a disconnect from the modern economy.
Koroilavesau says our ancestors built a civilisation on the principles of kinship, cooperation, and a deep-seated dignity woven into the fabric of our daily lives.
He says our villages were not just places to live; they were moral economies and in these economies, chiefs were custodians, not owners; labour was shared, and dignity outweighed profit.
The former Minister says our commerce was built on trust, on the reciprocal obligations of the iTaukei system.
He further says it was a resilient and ethical framework that ensured no one was left behind.
He adds then came the colonial administrators, who, for their own purposes of control, reinforced a communal structure, but in doing so, they also introduced an individualistic, cash-based economy and legal structures that, in their design, gradually eroded our communal logic.
Koroilavesau stressed that the introduction of laws like the Native Land Trust Act and the Mining Act gave us a title on paper, but separated us from the true authority over our own resources.
He says this fractured our delicate balance, leading to the mistrust, jealousy, and fragmentation we see today.
He adds that the profound and sacred connection between land and people was disrupted, leaving them with a crisis of identity.
The Opposition MP also raised concern that we have a growing number of iTaukei who have never visited their ancestral village, who feel disconnected from the very soil and spirit that defines them.
He says this disconnection creates a vacuum where identity should be, and it has been observed that a profound breakdown in our cultural mapping has occurred, where traditional roles were once passed down through ceremony and storytelling.
The former Minister says this is a crisis that echoes in the concerns of our traditional leaders, who have raised alarm over the erosion of our traditional protocols.
