Realities and dreams

Timoci Gaunavinaka, Nausori.

There are times in life when something so good happens and when you are just about to enjoy the event, then you wake up and find out that it was only a dream.

But today, the opposition parties have colluded to try and convince us that the reality we now clearly see and experience is only a dream.

They try to convince our younger generation, who happens to be the bulk of our voters, that the past was rosy when they were in Government.

But, they will never elaborate on the details of those “rosy” pasts. They do not want our young people to know that during some of those so-called “good-old days”;

1. Organizing sports, eating in a restaurant, drinking and relaxing in a bar or going to the movies on Sunday was illegal, unless of course if you are the PM or if you play golf.

2. iTaukei students with lower marks will get scholarships over students of other races with higher marks despite their failures at USP in increased numbers.

3. Thousands of agricultural leases were not renewed and landowners took their land back only to be left idle and overgrown with grass and weeds sinking our agricultural production down.

4. Crime rate rose by 36 per cent from 1986 to 1995 and Government then would “negotiate” the “conditions” of surrender of one of Fiji's most notorious criminals then, Alifereti Nimacere after he broke out of the Naboro Maximum Prison.

This made him a hero then and encouraged many youths to follow in his footstep. Guns were used in several bank robberies and people lived in fear.

5. Most students, who passed their University Entrance Exam, cannot go to university because there were no TELS then.

6. There were people serving time in prison, who were actually innocent, but were convicted because Legal Aid was not widely accessible then. Yet many high chiefs and prominent people who took millions of dollars from the NBF walked free.

But then the Bainimarama Government came in and built new roads and tar sealed gravel roads. They built new bridges, new markets, hospitals and health centres. They rebuilt and renovated schools, built new police stations, fire stations, opened new Legal Aid offices. They increased the individual tax threshold to $30,000, provided free education and provided rural electrification. They helped low income earners start their own businesses and encouraged land owners to lease or develop their land.

They provided housing assistance to first home owners and gave water tanks to rural villages and settlements. They provided wide TV coverage and communication access to rural areas. They now provide $1000 assistance to new born babies from low income families and given financial assistance to families whose homes were damaged by cyclones or floods.

This is too much for the opposition political parties to comprehend so now they are telling us that it is not real. They are trying to convince us that what we actually saw is not what we saw, what we heard is not exactly what we heard and what we experienced is not exactly what we went through.

Soon they may tell us that our name is not even our true name.