It is back to the 1990s with a vengeance as Sitiveni Rabuka and his puppet, the “Nutty Professor” *, allocate taxpayer funds to give tax breaks to iTaukei wanting to start or develop businesses.
The Fiji Development Bank and Merchant Finance become the new National Bank of Fiji in giving interest free loans to wannabe iTaukei business figures that everyone who pays tax will finance.
It’s an initiative announced in the budget that is exclusively for the iTaukei in clear contravention of the equal opportunity provisions of the 2013 Constitution. And as Grubsheet reported two days ago, it has raised terrible memories of the way the National Bank of Fiji collapsed under the weight of the iTaukei elite using the NBF as a piggy bank. An estimated $220-million or 8 per cent of the nation’s GDP was lost. And now that he has resumed power a quarter of a century on, Sitiveni Rabuka has seized the opportunity to do it all over again.
The details are buried in last Friday’s budget but this is what it says under the heading of “iTaukei Empowerment”. Yes, Fiji, your money being used not to empower every Fijian but Rabuka’s iTaukei constituency, enabled by his trusty “Uncle Biman” – the NFP leader – whose betrayal of the fundamental principle of equal opportunity is complete.
Here’s what Biman Prasad said in the budget speech:
“In this Budget we are also introducing a new scheme to provide interest free loans to support development of our iTaukei resource owners and investments by provincial holding companies. The Fiji Development Bank and Merchant Finance have already partnered with the Government to provide loans with 3 years of interest subsidy paid by the Government. We have provided $4 million which can cater for almost $60 million of interest free loans.
To further support and promote indigenous owned businesses, we will now accommodate existing indigenous companies to qualify for tax holidays and duty concessions if they invest in the Tax Free Regions. This incentive was previously only provided to new businesses, but we are bringing this flexibility to support our indigenous businesses.“
It has had almost zero coverage in the mainstream media. But now the Prime Minister has gone out to sell the initiative, urging Fijians not to assume that iTaukei businesses financed by the taxpayer will fail despite there being 220-million reasons to fear precisely that.
QUOTE: “As of now, all iTaukei businesses are expected to rise and thrive, with the assistance of the FDB’s interest-free loans for the first three years” UNQUOTE
Oh really? Be afraid, Fiji. Be very afraid. Because the man who triggered the coup cycle in Fiji in 1987 to entrench indigenous supremacy and bankrupted the National Bank handing out baubles to his own people is at it again. And appeased and enabled by a political leader in Biman Prasad who ought to be standing up for equality of opportunity yet is giving iTaukei business wannabes a free kick at your expense.
18 months into the Coalition government, it is no longer a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same. But the more things change, the more they get a lot worse.
As the Spanish writer and philosopher, George Santayana, famously said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. Or as the American baseball ace and homespun philosopher, Yogi Berra, said just as pertinently: “It’s deja-vu all over again”.
We now have the full Budget Address from last Friday. Click on the link below:
https://www.fiji.gov.fj/Media-Centre/Speeches/English/2024-2025-NATIONAL-BUDGET-ADDRESS
* The “Nutty Professor”. A nickname for Biman Prasad doing the rounds of the business elite. From the 1996 movie of the same name.
That’s like repeating the EIMCOL stores that Ratu Mara opened at tax payer costs. The average lifespan of these stores were 6 months.
Too much kerekere from relatives caused Indigenous businessmen to fail in that freebie venture. One needs to think outside the box when it comes to Fijian itaukei businesses. Not many are successful. Its like giving Fiji Indians the rugby ball and ask them to represent the country. Everyone should remain in their subject matter as experts rather than wanting to copy gujiratis.
The girmit Indians meanwhile have only one business………..Education, Education, Education!! And professional employment thereafter.
BUT we girmityas spend our entire lives in debt from banks as mortgage, car loan student loan, family loan .
Long overdue. Thank you PM. You will get mine, my village, my province, my mother’s province and my confederacy’s vote. The only PM apart from Qarase with the balls to empower the majority of the population. Don’t worry about the social media commentators, most of them are not eligible to vote anyway. With the FFP gone, we look forward to 6 years of stability as there is no other viable party for 2026. Vinaka vakalevu. Let’s meet up at FDB next week people. Hahahaha.
That is correct, this nutcase PM needs another term so that he can complete the screwing of the country. He has unfinished business. The more stupid one is the more votes they will get. Tells you a lot about the population of Fiji. They all are proud to be idiots.
But one thing is unquestionable, everyone has the right to be stupid if they so choose and a vast majority of Fijians make that choice everyday. And I am not talking about just the iTaukeis. This is Fiji and the people are proud to be arrogant and racist and then they go to church. It is all just normal.
Would they be giving interest free loans if there were no vulagi in the country?
Would they have a Ministry of iTaukei Affairs if there were no vulagi?
Who would they blame if there were no vulagi?
Or would they be thriving like PNG?
@Idiots everywhere after you minus the Vulagi it’s tribal. PNG is one direction to look. But if you want to look further for the inevitable race based Politics after Constitutional Amendments. Look to Africa for Democratic Tribal Politics to see another alternate future that has many countries described as carcasses with lions feeding.
Or Zimbabwe?
Agreed, ‘screwing’ the country for a ‘happy’ ending for him and his cronies. Desh ka kya haal hoga Chacha!
Its nothing new and this was expected.
I mean what else would you expect from a senile leader who has absolutely no clear vision of where the country is heading or what the consequences of such a scheme would be.
How is this fair on other groups that have similar ambitions of opening a business? Will they be considered, otherwise this is absolutely a racist policy and Biman should be ashamed of even announcing such a policy let along financing it.
Seems like this kerekere business will tank the Fiji economy even further and possibly to the brink of bankruptcy.
China might be waiting around the corner.
I fail to understand how the ITAUKEI are expected to generate income through this tax free incentive when they couldn’t generate income from working the land they own.
Oh yes I only wish the budget says that they will purchase 50 diggers and supply it to 10 provinces in Fiji that have mass of land acres for better cultivation. Provide the also with the market.
Then think of other things that can be given to other provinces so they can develop their natural resources. Provide them also with the market.
There will be no urban drift, people will have sufficient in their house to eat and have money also to buy.
Native Fijians will never succeed in the business world unless they learn how to run businesses.
Providing tax incentives and interest free finance DOES NOT help. In fact, it’s more detrimental to the process of learning to run a business. It just increases their sense of entitlement and they wont appreciate the value of money. As the saying goes, ‘easy come easy goes”. When you sweat for your money, you will appreciate the value of it more. If it was given for free, you are more likely not to care as much.
Such incentives have been tried many times in Fiji in the last 50 years and all have failed miserably.
Fijians will be better off in business in the long run if Government uses the fund to provide business training to Fijians. Teach Fijians about the fundamentals of business concepts such separating business affairs from personal affairs, record keeping, ensuring the fundamental of the business is profitable, cashflow management, financial discipline, understanding markets and economy etc. And together with some simple HARD WORK, voilà!
I am sick of hearing leaders justifying Fijian lack of business participation to it being a foreign concept to Fijians and the need to level the playing field.
Christianity is a foreign concept to Fiji. Yet Fijians are very good at it. There are churches, preachers, pastors and ministers everywhere you look.
Rugby 7s is a foreign concept. We are brilliant at it without the need to apply special rules to native Fijian teams.
So why should the rules be changed for the native business people. It’s a universal concept. Same rules apply everywhere.
And lastly, all these people advocating for “solesolevaki” concept to ensure Fijians succeed in business, please stop. It does not work in todays Fijian society. It worked in village settings in the past where there was no money involved. Villagers did solesolevaki for communal projects and still planted, gathered and hunted for their own families.
Majority of communal business project today fail due to lack of transparency and accountability of people running it. Also applies to most formal Co-operative entities. This normally ends up with more divisions to native Fijians when members accuse office bearers of misappropriation.
If native Fijians want to pool resources for capital, there is a vehicle that already exist with more robust governance structure. Its called the South Pacific Stock Exchange. Solesolevaki for your capital, then float a company.
But please no tax free and interest free loans.
So the freebies has begun! The Itaukei’s are silent on this. If this was Aiyaz they would be yelling Freebies Freebies tamana!
George Bernard Shaw’s famous quote : “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”
I doubt the nutty Professor has ever done a cash flow statement in his life, last year at his post budget discussion he described as “voodoo econonics” all suggestions put forward to him n good faith by people in the community whose views differed from his.
But if there is one good example of voodoo economics it’s this latest brain wave of his for government to pay the interest on taukei loans but confined only to Fiji Development Bank and Merchant Finance Ltd loans.
Commercial banks, credit unions, insurance and others in the shadow banking sector are excluded. So the story now is different strokes for different folks.
The last time Rabuka led government was in the early to mid 1990s. For the first time probably in tge world he allowed a Cabinet Ministerex fellow Victorian , Isimeli Bose to serve concurrently as CEO of the newly formed Ba a provincial Holdings Company and as Cabinet Minister.
Since then until today the Ba Provincial Holdings Comoany under Bose has always received a qualified audit report for every year of its life.
This is what happens when u weaken the disciplinary standards that normally applied to business for crony capitalism to be established. It distorts the market and diverts benefit streams to internal power brokers. This is corruption by all definitions of the world. Meanwhile, the ordinary people suffer.
The Rabuka playbook is keep the chiefs happy – and get a useful idiot to draw up the budget. Biman is playing the role of useful idiot to perfection.
Sadly this model produces a few opportunities for the elite to grab at the expense of good governance and regulatory control in general.
We will see the inevitable but scarcely believable further collapse in infrastructure and public goods that are already meager to non existent.
Tax payers will be rightly concerned noting the use of tax holidays is expanding not shrinking.
This is why for the entire time I lived in Fiji, I never paid tax. That’s because I knew that my money would go to undeserving people.
This decision is Rabukanomics which is really abt helping tge tsukei oligarchy, never about the ordinary taukei the mass of whom like everyone else struggle with the high cost of living and with the need to get decent livable wages.
Govt paying the interest charges of taukei companies with loans from the govt-owned Developments Bank and the Fijian-Holdings owned Merchant Finance is designed to help Fijian Holdings itself and provincial companies that borrowed heavily to buy real estate assets like the Yatu Lau Company, Ba Provincial Holdings, Rewa, Tailevu and the defunct Cakaudrove Bua Macuata Holdings Ltd.
Most of these provincial companies make their money from govt rental guarantees, but because of mismanagement and corruption are not able to show any material benefits for govt’s largesse.
Rabuka SVT crony, Isimeli Bose in charge of Ba Provincial Holdings appeared 2-3 times in court prior to the general election charged with corruption, but since the coalition govt came into power suddenly everything has gone quiet.
This is one case the new attorney-general should look into. But the case of these provincial companies so far proves the saying that the way you come into existence will determine how you will run your life.
Put simply, a coconut doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Taukei companies that are created by govt support cannot survive without thst govt support.