WEEKEND READING. ♦ Allen Lockington column ♦ Croz Walsh on Just Wages ♦ Wadan Narsey on the Wages Councils.
"I support what is happening in Fiji. Let’s see how open your Blog is. I don’t see anything positive on your site so here goes.
"I am a supporter of what the present Government is doing and would vote for them if they stood in an election.
"Without throwing negative crap at the previous Governments I wish to point out the positives of what has happened in the last five years. I don’t believe any of these achievements would have happened under our previous system.
"For the first time we have officials visiting outlying villages to ask what assistance they need. Guess what! There has been action taken on some concerns that have stopped development for generations. Simple things like a grader up an access road, or a middleman holding a village produce hostage and paying a low fee. Working at getting every family to grow a surplus of healthy food that can be sold to stop having to import food into the country. Trying to make schooling affordable for even the poorest in the country allows parents to see a future for their better educated children. Trying to finally bring the police into the reality that all crime including that against children needs to be solved. The days of a police officer attending a crime and not even taking any notes now appears to be over.
"These on-the-ground actions are of more use to the average person than some abstract vision of a future of voting for a group of people that had no interest in anything other than filling their own pockets.
"We have a government that is for the first time trying to solve the long term problems of land and sugar that are crippling the economy. I believe that these are being worked through so that all parties will be happy with the result. There will be the usual screamers that object to anything that is a break from tradition. These people must realise that tradition is a developing idea and not a static idea that strangles us.
"The downturn in our economy is a necessary evil we have to work through to move into the modern world. Our option was to return to a subsistence lifestyle with no future beyond the village gate. High unemployment as we have to absorb the redundancies in the civil service and the downsizing of many bloated businesses that lived off subsidies provided by previous governments is hopefully a temporary problem.
"While he comes over as being arrogant and dictatorial Commander Frank Bainimarama has had a history of trying to work for the betterment of Fiji. He was involved in solving the previous coups and knows how destructive to us repeated crashes in our lifestyle are. While I accept that there have been some diplomatic disasters I believe that many of these have been caused by other people’s unscripted actions and the PMs necessary actions and reactions to correct things. He is certainly not a politician.
"Let’s give him the chance he has asked for and in 2014 we can decide if he has achieved enough."
N0125. EDUCATING THE MEDIA. The Fiji Media Industry Development Authority (MIDA) has begun holding regular meetings to explain its work to stakeholders and media representatives.
MIDA chairperson Professor Subramani says there remains considerable misunderstanding about the "true intentions" of the Media Decree, both within Fiji and abroad.
Subramani says the provisions in the Media Decree are necessary to raise the standard of Fiji media services in English as well as other vernacular languages.
He says safeguarding the interests of women and children, sensitivity in reporting of Fiji’s multi-ethnic communities and protecting the national interest are all worthwhile goals that require an educated media.
Subramani adds the media needs to exercise discipline and objectivity in carrying out its responsibilities.
The authority says it will be working closely with organisations and institutions associated with the media, and will further hold dialogue with training institutions and media organisations in Fiji and abroad.
N0126. MINISTERIAL CONTACT GROUP MEET. Foreign Minister Murray McCully leaves on Sunday for Vanuatu to attend a meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum Ministerial Contact Group on Fiji. Mr McCully said today group members had unanimously agreed to hold the meeting and invite Fiji's interim Foreign Minister Ratu Inoke Kubuabola to attend part of it. The group was established in March 2008, tasked by Pacific Island Forum Secretariat leaders with monitoring the situation in Fiji and reporting on developments.
N0127. AUDIT REVEALS IMPROPER AG PURCHASES. The special audit carried out by the Auditor General's office into the affairs of the Agriculture Ministry in 2002 revealed that proper tender processes were not followed and quotations were not obtained from three companies as required when giving out Farming Assistance. Click here for full article.
8 comments:
As the noose tightens it is interesting to see the various strategies being used by coup supporters to try and get some credibility for the regime.
As you have quoted the writer, and to its credit the anti coup regime blog FijiToday has published the rather interesting 'plea' as well, it states... "I am a supporter of what the present Government is doing and would vote for them if they stood in an election." This is a very disturbing statement. Fiji does not have a government - it has a military regime? more frightening however is the statement that the 'writer' would vote for them? Is the military regime morphing into a political party which is going to stand in the supposed 'free and fair elections'? This probably explains all the regime handouts and non stop 'goody news' spin?
For definitions "A government is the organization, machinery, or agency through which a political unit exercises its authority, controls and administers public policy, and directs and controls the actions of its members or subjects"
This is a government, it is in control, in authority.
Whether you like it or not.
@ very ominous indeed.....
No 'morphing' as you so interestingly put it. Look at Egypt and see what has been achieved in 18 days and with 300 sad and regrettable deaths: rule by military council with the prospect of free and fair elections. Many dangers ahead for Egyptians. Just as there are here. But 'staying put' was never an option - and you know it was not. Economic hardship is a different proposition from economic annihilation. That was always a prospect under a dysfunctional, abused and debatable democracy. Fiji must be reformed and reconstructed and it is well beyond time that all Pacific regional neighbours assist in this. It is to their vital best interest to do so. Did not many of them collude in an oppressive and disgraceful past? It is time for the Swiss, Singaporean and other banks to freeze assets and for those who have diverted public money to their own pockets to be rigorouly pursued without delay or demur. Every dollar of public money alienated from development is to be returned to the Public Purse! freely or through Due Process. Because justice and accountability will not be 'bucked'.
@Walker Texas Ranger
Yes, the freedom loving people of the world and those that desire democracy are today celebrating the removal of another of the world's dictators. As we all agree these unelected tryrants and their families and supporters are legitimate targets.
And as you quite rightly say, all their assets and those of their hangers on must be confiscated - this has also occurred today and is the roadmap for all dictators.
We celebrate this victory with you and Croz - a great weekend for all who fight for democracy.
@ Proud Fijian
Of course its a government. But, is it the kind of government the populace wants/wanted? [Hard to say with the PER in place]
The Bainimarama government is often referred to as a military dictatorship [Their power to rule comes from the military, not the ballot box]
Is this the kind of political organisation to lead Fiji to what's touted a "Better Fiji".
Democracy and free speech: democracy and accountability for taxpayers' money; democracy and transparency, equity and, most important of all, DIGNITY:
The scenes from Cairo, Alexandria show that eventually those who are taxed will require that they are served. Their best interests must be served by the civil servants who are paid from public funds. There is no such thing as 'governments' money': it is merely collected and to be used in trust for the people. This was always so. In the past two decades some of us appear to have forgotten this? We believed, falsely, that we were there to be served and this service was paid for from public funds. The 21st century - a century it appears of increasing liberty from oppression (cultural or political) will require that those who misdirect the people's money will account for their crimes and, also increasingly, they will be required to return their ill-gotten gains for the use of the people alienated from its developmental benefit. Now who could disagree with that?
+1
@ Islands in the Stream...
Waiting with impatience for the first Wikileaks release on the banks and all their Cayman Island and Swiss branch clients. Whom, do you suppose, might feature? Or will they all have closed up shop after one of the banks named did some crisis management advertising on CNN late last year? A fascinating piece of self-revelation which was ill-advised...now?
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