The extent of the challenge facing the Coalition parties as they seek a second term in government is laid bare in a landmark report by the nation’s foremost policy institute – Dialogue Fiji – that reveals cost-of-living pressures are the top priority of most Fijians.
Not crime and drugs. Not iTaukei rights. Not changing the Constitution or the electoral system. But the basic challenge of simply surviving. Of putting food on the table (or mat) at a time of escalating costs which the survey finds is putting unprecedented pressure on the Fijian people.
By the time the election comes around in nine month’s time at the latest – assuming it isn’t delayed or cancelled on some “national security” pretext – those pressures are going to be a lot worse, some of them because of external events beyond the control of the nation’s leaders. But what they can control is going to come into sharp focus.
- Why did the Coalition – having promised to relieve cost-of-living pressures – grant a seven year tax holiday to the billionaire owners of the nation’s biggest export, Fiji Water, while at the same time, increasing VAT on a range of items from nine to 15 per cent?
- Why did the nation’s MPs vote themselves pay rises of an average 138 per cent plus equally unconscionable benefits such as the ability to import duty-free vehicles and make profits from on-selling those vehicles? Taking a 20 per cent pay cut now does nothing to address the obscene scale of the parliamentary trough-fest.
- Why has the Coalition collectively spent like a bunch of drunken sailors on shore leave, increasing the national debt from $9.5-billion dollars when it took office to $10.9-billion dollars and counting? The notion of austerity is foreign to this government as it members gallivant around the world and indulge their every whim.
- Why do we have a Prime Minister who flaunts a $150,000 gold Rolex watch and refuses to tell us who gave it to him and in exchange for what? When ordinary people are struggling to even survive, this is a gross obscenity in itself.
- Why on top of all of this do our leaders seem perpetually pleased to pose with the representatives of foreign governments who are keeping Fiji afloat? They deport themselves like royalty but are beggars from a beggar nation living off the global drip.
- When the Dialogue Fiji survey also shows that health is a community priority, why can’t the government fix the nation’s biggest hospital, CWM, once and for all instead of attacking volunteers like Judy Compain who take it upon themselves to do what the government won’t? The Coalition has turned buck-passing into an art form. It is always someone else’s fault.
All these chickens are going to come home to roost when the Fijian people finally decide where their votes will go come election day. Don’t take my word for it, Dear Reader. It’s all there in the Dialogue Fiji report. Extracts below but you can read the full findings at:
https://www.dialoguefiji.org/_files/ugd/d637e8_9f09ec0369114b44b5756efe1bc82942.pdf
https://www.dialoguefiji.org/_files/ugd/d637e8_9f09ec0369114b44b5756efe1bc82942.pdf
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Yes, more help for the Beggar Nation is on the way. But it ain’t because we deserve it. Because under this government, Fiji has abandoned any notion of being able to stand on its own two feet, let alone take proper care of its citizens.
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Wake up people! This government is doing a terrible job of running this country. They are ruining it! Stuffing their pockets. Look around at the mess this country is in. They did this. Vote them out!!
Well they are doing a terrible job for sure, but election time they will just blame everything on the previous regime. very convienient- and sadly and unfortunately a whole lot of the masses will jump onboard with the claim and will likely vote for these lot again!
I think blaming Frank and Aiyaz is wearing a bit thin. The way things are, most sensible people with a view to their own survival would vote for Frank and Aiyaz in a heartbeat if they were given a chance to do so again, just as most people did in 2022 and were thwarted by the “power of one” that produced this miserable, incompetent Coalition. Alas…
Yes, I know. I am partly to blame for advocating a vote for the NFP, something I bitterly regret. My apologies.
The Government will blame the Middle East conflict, but that only started in February this year. The position Fiji finds itself in started well before that and the blame is squarely the Government’ own policies and actions.
The projected population of Fiji in 2026, according to the Bureau of Statistics is 902,623. The lack of growth is projected to be a result of an accelerated exodus of Fijians and others from Fiji since 2023. The estimated number who have left is now at 140,000 and may continue as the current Government seek to continue discriminatory policies in employment and service provision.
The number of Civil Servants and General Workers Employed has grown substantially over the last three years under this Government. When they came to power there were 24255, now it has grown to 30,164 (1 in 30 Fijians). Whilst the population has not grown, Government has!
The projected Operating Cost of Government at the 2022-23 Budget was $2,600,743,100 whilst in the 2025-26 Budget the projected cost is $3,906,866,100 an increase in 3 years of $1,306,123,000. The debt level has gone from Fiji First government debt of $9.5 in 2022 to a government debt now at $ 10.933.8 Billion and climbing.
Now Fiji has a government who are fiscally dumb, with a raging drug problem and all they seem interested in amending the Constitution and the electoral laws to ensure they remain in power! And now hinting at a State of Emergency!
What is next? One can only imagine!