McCully to meet Kubuabola this weekend. Link.
Fiji schools will start an hour later from Monday because of daylight saving. Link.
TOURISM
Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts plans to build a resort at Natadola - as soon as the global economy improves. Link.
ROADMAP: IMPROVING GOVERNMENT SERVICES
Alleged abuse of funds by FNPF staff. Link.
Steps taken to down-size and improve efficiency in civil service. Link. PSC Permanent Secretary Parmesh Chand said plans to downsize the civil service were on track after government implemented a 10 percent staff cut in 2008 and compulsory retirement program last year. “As we go along, we’ll build on this to see which areas of government expenditure we’d like to contain, areas such as vehicle expenses, rental space of office accommodation, overtime for civil servants, telecommunications, energy costs etc.” Chand added the Finance Ministry would scrutinize government spending to ensure civil servants are in line with government’s objectives of keeping expenditure to a minimum.
Corruption and abuse of office. The Works and Transport Ministry has sacked 50 workers over the past two years for offences related to corruption and abuse of office.Link.
ROADMAP: IMPROVING INFRASTRUCTURE
Islanders need water. Link. Villagers on Fulaga in the southern Lau Group say they've had scarce water supplies since last year. Rainfall has been good but the reservoir and pipes are very old, it takes a long time to fill buckets, and crops have been destroyed. The villagers say they have never asked Government to help. When there are long dry spells "we pray and ask God to meet our needs."
Bainmarama: We need money for water, not to build churches. Link. Government is trying, with limited funds, to ensure that every village and settlement has water and power supply.
Road upgrade budget. Link.
Greater Suva water treatment upgrades. Link.
If readers wonder why I report such mundane matters, it's partly to show government is functioning normally in funding basic facilities, and also to show its Roadmap commitment to improving infrastructure, some of which has been neglected for a number of years.
The Ministry of Education reports that about 1,000 graduate teachers are still on waiting list and not yet found work. Link.
PM promises equal rights. Link.
7 comments:
Croz, was this for obscenity or stupidity?
Bainimarama's right. If half the money spent at village level on churches was diverted to community projects, there'd be a lot better infrastructure even in remote areas. Fifty years ago, there'd be one big Methodist Church slap bang in the middle of the village and an occasional Roman catholic mission dotted through the countryside. Now we've got the Methodists, New Methodists, Roman catholics, Seventh Day Adventists, Assemblies of God, Jehovah's Witnesses and a whole heap of splinter charismatic groups. Fiji is drowning in religion, not water. And for all that fervent carrying on, the devil still has the country by the throat.
So Natadola is to go the way of all nice places in the world, into the hands of the developers. The Waikikification of Fiji continues. I'd have thought the Intercontinental is enough from an ecological viewpoint. Shangri La already has The Fijian down the road. Why does it need another resort? Yes, the beach is better but this is definitely shades of Hawaii. There's an Aston there on almost every corner. Look at Denarau. Awful.
Croz, I don't like this move of yours into the social media. I've just had a look at your "followers" on the left hand side there. Truly scary. Someone called Angry Indian who looks at bit like Truganini, the last Tasmanian. And the dreadful Sai Lealea, that bloke from Wellington with too much education and too little sense. Then there's a stack of anonymous "photos", people hiding behind generic cutouts. Surely this is a breach of your ban on anonymous contributors?
Antisocial media. Followers receive my postings automatically and I would like all regular readers to join them. They don't necessarily agree with the underlying philosophy of the blog,and that's fine we me. As they say, there's little point preaching to the converted. Neither do I have a problem with their anonymity. They are not commenting. "Followers" is not a recently added feature. It's been there for a year or more. But I've drawn attention to it as part of the Readership Drive to reach a target of 3,000 visits a week. Why not sign up?
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