'Free education'

Suva

The Leader of Unity Fiji, in his article on Saturday (Fiji Sun 20/10/18), is rather misleading.

It raises numerous questions to me as a father with children all attending secondary and tertiary institutions. Mr Narube is a former RBF governor and was a Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance for four years. Now he is saying that if his party wins the election they will provide free education for all Fijians and remove TOPPERS and TELS schemes, which he claims to be discriminatory, inequitable and too burdensome. He also mentioned in his article that he prepared five national budgets and has the experience to find the money to fund these scholarships which is not a problem for him. Can he inform voters how and where will he get the funds for free education and full scholarships for all? Well my answer is simple, If he can easily find the money then it is either by increasing VAT from 9 per cent to 15 per cent or reducing the income tax threshold from $30,000 back to $8840.

The previous governments which appointed him as the RBF governor only managed to increase the tax threshold to $8840. Compare this with the major increase in our tax threshold from $8840 to $30000 by the FijiFirst Government for the last 11 years since 2007.

I must remind Mr Narube that actions speak louder than words. Again with his years of experience as the RBF governor, and the think tank behind five national budgets, government revenue collections was only below $1.2billion. The FijiFirst government together with the Fiji Revenue Customs Services have improved their policies over the years and are now capable of collecting $3 billion to fund government services. These parties are just taking us back with a lot of false promises that will not be fulfilled. To all voters, think again and be smart this time before you cast your vote.

God Bless Fiji