MARKET VENDORS HAVE ACCESS TO INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE THROUGH WALESI

Attorney-General and Minister for Communications Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has assured that more markets in Fiji will be connected to free Walesi and Wi-Fi hotspots. During the commissioning of 11 Walesi sets and 65-inch television screens at Labasa Market last Saturday, he said they had connected markets such as in Nadi, Namaka and Suva a few weeks ago.

“Government has announced some time back working with Walesi that we wanted to ensure that markets in Fiji had connectivity to free Wi-Fi and also have access to television,” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said.

“These markets throughout Fiji have a lot of people coming to do their shopping, mingle with others and vendors spend the whole day in the market.” He said in order to ensure that they were empowered with knowledge and information like how they connected Wi-Fi to schools and other remote locations, they decided to do it for the markets.

He advised the vendors from fish, vegetables and species sections to look after the television screens.

Walesi chief executive officer Sanjay Maharaj said the remote control would be with the market master who would consult with the vendors on which channel to view. This event was not an elections campaign

Meanwhile, Mr Maharaj has cleared the air that such programmes had nothing to do with any political parties and their campaign.

He said there were absolutely no candidates campaigning and no mention of the party.

His comments follow as some are spreading rumours that this commission was part of FijiFirst campaign.

“The only person during the commissioning was the Attorney-General who is the Minister for Communications as Walesi falls under the Ministry of Communication,” he said.

“We are Government-owned so we report to the Ministry of Communications.”

He said Mr Sayed-Khaiyum had done many launches for the company in all over the places since it started in 2017.

“Such kind of launching by him for us is nothing new,” he said. “We are doing these things to ensure that people are connected and have access to information.” He said they do not want to leave the Northern Division behind and this was the reason they brought the access to the north, the same as they do in other markets.