Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. (René Descartes, mathematician and philosopher,1599-1650)

Wednesday 9 June 2010

(-+) Someone's Lost Four Fingers

The Coupfourpointfive blog reports the Fiji Labour Party website as blaming the Bainimarama government for Fiji's poor economic performance. It's a long list that includes devaluation, inflation, an increase in poverty, inability to repay loans (the first one for $150 million is due next year. It was taken out by the Qarase government!), writing down the value of FNPF tourism investments (due mainly to the collapse of a NZ investment company!), national debt at 70% of GDP (the IMF calculated 52%!), and economic problems in the sugar, electricity, airline, and communications industries.

Putting aside FLP leader Mahendra Chaudhry's former involvement as Minister of Finance (and therefore shared responsibility) in the Bainimarama administration, Fiji is not alone in having economic difficulties.

If indeed the government is responsible for the poor state of the economy, the responsibility should be shared with four other factors, not mentioned by the FLP or Coupfourpointfive:
  • One, the Fiji economy was already in trouble before the 2006 coup;
  • Two, the need to borrow massively to repair long-neglected infrastructure and invest in improvements that will help development;
  • Three, the ongoing effects of the global recession;
  • Four, the damage to the economy by direct and indirect outside political influences. These include the withholding of EU and Commonwealth moneys; restricted aid flows; exclusion from the Forum; travel bans that prevented qualified people from applying for key jobs; mounting investor uncertainty, and the barrage of negative media (and anti-government blog!) news.
And that's not counting floods and hurricanes and the millions of dollars they cost. No mention whatsoever is made of the positive things government is doing. 

So, Mahendra Chaudhry and Coupfourpointfive editors, Congratulations. I don't know what perverse or perverted satisfaction you gain from reporting Fiji's troubles, but there's little doubt  you have added to them. True, one finger might fairly point to Bainimarama, but the other four point elsewhere.  Start counting.

7 comments:

Half man, full ego said...

Mahen, Mahen, why do you always invariably sink to the occasion? You failed to unite the country when given the chance to lead, you abandoned your democratic principles to join the dictatorship, you abandoned even that when you didn't get what you wanted , now you join the ranks of the accusers to destabilise the country even further. History will record that you became Fiji's first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister and blew it by indulging in nepotism and failing to properly engage the indigenous majority. You could have been a great man but wound up a wrecker. Just another opportunist, just like the people you opposed. What a waste.

sara'ssista said...

what . no mention of an obscene military budget, a police/new methodist crusade budget, what about the monies that are yet to be recovered from members of this regime from the loan scandal, oh and lets be clear...there is no entitlement to overseas largesse from eu, us, aus and nz , there is no entitlement to aid but it is my understanding that the very generous chinese, would fill the void, what happened to the look north policy?? This regime makes it clear it wants to remove the 'shackles of colonialism' and apparently the 'shackles of democratic governance' so i say keep looking north boys.

TheMax said...

You know what Croz, I have come to believe those anti-anything at coupfourpointfive get sexually orgasmic reading their own comments and articles. For how long will they realise that their comments and articles are not even changing anything with the current government. They can rant and whine all they like, nobody actually cares. They've been attacking anyone who is involved with the current government/leadership all these times but then the rest of Fiji keeps moving forward with the current leadership. As I've said once before, the grassroot people of this country have come to understand what exactly the RFMF and Bainimarama are trying to do for this country. This is why they are backing this leadership to carry on with what they are trying to do. Bainimarama may have followed an "illegal" way of taking over a "democratically-elected" government but what he is now doing is 2000 times better than the so called "democratically-elected" government Fiji had from 2001 to 2006.

Anonymous said...

Croz,
I know you state this site is impartial, but your response to the Labour Party piece places no blame on the current administration.
There is very little investment either local or overseas at the moment. I don't have access to the figures but I bet that it is the lowest level since independence in real terms.
Why because this government can do whatever it likes with no checks or balances.
With the swift signature from the president there is a new decree which cannot be challenged in the courts and cannot be challenged in the media.
We are about to have the Media Decree which states that ownership of media organisations must be 90% local. If they can do that to media organisations they could do the same for Hotels, Gold Mines, Water Companies, in fact any company at all.
You will probably say they never would, well 3 years ago you would have said they never would for media organisations.
If you are an overseas investor you have no guarantee that you will be able to get your money out of the country. The Reserve Bank puts so many difficulties in your way.
The Fiji economy has shrunk substantially since Bainimarama took control, we have high inflation, the dollar has been devalued. Is he not responsible for any of this?
Croz for this to be a really unbiased site you need to analyse and criticise this government in the same way that you ananlyse and criticise any statements that put a contrary point of view.

Croz the censor said...

Croz, after many months of regular contributions, several recent comments I submitted haven't got past the gatekeeper - you. I thought you'd introduced screening to counter cyber terrorism and perhaps offensive and defamatory statements. But you've also clearly used this as a means to filter out postings you don't agree with. By doing so, you are now no better than websites like Solivakasama and have strayed from sympathy for the regime to blind advocacy. If you wonder why you have zero comments on more and more of your offerings, it's because we've given up on you.

sara'ssista said...

@The Max. i always find it amusing that others speak of how popular this illegal regime is, but they find it hard to go through a vote to prove it. Pardon me , but how do yo know the public is happy when no-one is allowed to print if they are not ??? What is the big emergency, what is the big national crisis that requires this regime? Give everyone free bus fares for all i care but don't be missing the big picture., this guy is no different to mugabe, the burmese generals etc... he is certainly no freedom fighter or latter day saviour of the nation. If he felt so strongly he could have always resigned his commission and run for office.Oh that's not what happens in fiji these days.

Crosbie Walsh said...

@ Croz the Censor ... I've not had access to the internet for the last few days. If your comment was delayed or accidentally deleted, my apologies. No comment is ever deleted because the views expressed differ from my own.