Snippets from Fiji: the Budget

Spending cuts.  pn427

SODELPA MP Viliame Gavoka has called for  US Qorvis Communications to be sent home.  Qorvis costs $1 million a year to handle Government communications and speech writing. Gavoka said Qorvis has a questionable international reputation and, besides, local people can handle this work. The motion was lost 27 to 23.

SODELPA’s Ro Filipe Tuisawau wants the Pacific Islands Development Forum (set up when Fiji was expelled from the Pacific Islands Forum) scrapped. With Fiji’s readmission to the PIF there was no further need for the PIDF, he said. The A-G responded by saying it had been at the forefront on climate change issues, and that unlike the PIF, was open to civil societies and NGOs. The Budget allocated $1.2 million to the PIDF. The motion was lost 26 to 23. Two MPs did not vote.

NFP’s Lenora Qereqeretabua has questioned the cancellation of the school free milk scheme and the end of free bus transport after 4:30pm. Both actions were responses to alleged misuse by school children. The MP wants some solid evidence of misuse “so that we can be assured that such a major policy shift is warranted.” She said the Budget was “champagne on a beer budget,” referring to what she considered overspending in some areas and cuts in essential other areas such as education.

NFP leader Prof Biman Prasad “felt sorry for the Economy Minister, who  in delivering his Budget, talked about the long-dead issue of the National Bank of Fiji fiasco, school gardening and children jumping on milk cartons “instead of acknowledging the Government had mismanaged the country’s finances.”

NFP Whip Pio Tikoduadua said the Budget “will not boost business confidence or give ordinary workers the ability to feed hungry mouths ... slowly but surely (it will) kill the country’s biggest earner ... the tourism industry.”

All these snippets were from The Fiji Times.

For a different interpretation, a different source.  Fiji Live quotes the PM as saying,  “The Fiji economy is strong and its liquidity levels are more than sufficient.  

And Education Minister Rosy Akbar refutes SODELPA’s Mosese Bulitavu’s claims that students are studying in tents. She said where schools had been damaged  by recent cyclones, only 15 remain to be rebuilt and this should be completed by the end of 2019.