Unity Fiji Leader, Savenaca Narube says the crowding out impact of government debt can result in essential government services getting affected as more debt repayments will eventually have to be made.
With government debt projected to be about $10 billion, Narube says he has been telling government that their spending is too much and there is wastage of money which is leading to a lot of borrowing.
The former Governor of the RBF says you cannot grow an economy like Fiji on government spending because it leads to debt, adding that increasing debt affects everyone.
He says from every dollar that we pay the government in our taxes, 43 cents will go towards paying the debt, and 57 cents is left from that dollar to pay for government services that need to be provided to the people.
While speaking on fijivillage Straight Talk With Vijay Narayan, Narube says we urgently need to cut back on the huge wastage in government spending.
He has also questioned why do we need to spend more than a billion dollars on a road from Suva to Nadi across Viti Levu when our health system and the people of Fiji are struggling.
Narube says this project has just been thrown to muddy the waters and he believes it is a pie in the sky project.
He claims based on Unity Fiji’s assessment, they have identified about one billion dollars of wastage in every budget that they can save.
Narube further says to address the issue of wastage they need to be looking at grants that goes to public companies, how efficient are these entities adding they can save about 30 percent of these grants.
He also says they will have less government vehicles.
You can watch the full Straight Talk interview here.
