Budget debate at a glance

Timoci Gaunavinaka, Nausori

Here are some pointers:

1. Leader of Opposition Sitiveni Rabuka’s criticism of the Budget’s $20 million reduction in education is baseless. We will not be building and renovating more schools that are already built and renovated. Those expenses took a chunk of the education budget after Tropical Cyclone Winston and should be winding down slowly every year.

2. Mr Rabuka is correct that more targeted projects must be encouraged and implemented to increase production. This can go to agriculture, forestry, fisheries, manufacturing, etc.

3. SODELPA MP Mosese Bulitavu has a valid point requesting Government assistance in building access roads to rural farms. This is vital to increase production in our agricultural sector, not only in kava which Mr Bulitavu emphasised on but also in other crops. I have experienced firsthand the hardship faced by many kava farmers because of the difficulty in accessing their farms in rural areas or in bringing them to the markets. Most rural farmers are hardworking people and can struggle to achieve their targets in various agricultural productions. But if Government can assist them in building rural access roads, there is no doubt that our agricultural production output will rise tremendously and many of that can be exported to shrink our trade deficit. To minimise the cost of building these roads, negotiation with landowners can be made so gravel from a near-by river or stream can be scooped up by a digger and loaded into trucks for that purpose and am sure that various vanua and landowning yavusa will support such projects for the betterment of their own people.

4. Mr Rabuka’s argument referring to National Federation Party MP Biman Prasad’s support on his Budget response is cheap. When Fiji works with other countries like Australia, New Zealand, UK, etc.

These are countries whose economic experts are hundreds of times qualified than Mr Biman, former Reserve Bank of Fiji Governor Savenaca Narube and Wardan Narsey combined. And besides, these experts do not hold any political biases like these three and have nothing to lose or gain from advising Fiji. In addition to that, they throw in tens of millions of dollars to back up their advice.

5. My best part of the Budget response and made me laugh was PM’s accurate statement about The Fiji Times. “I could literally announce we’ve found the cure to the coronavirus, and The Fiji Times would run a front page story on what Mr Biman had for breakfast.”