Prasad Listens to North Calls
We don’t want to become a welfare nation,” says Batiri Village headman Viliame Bulilevu.
He shared this sentiment during the visit to the village at Seaqaqa, Macuata, on Thursday the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Biman Prasad.
The visit was part of gathering views of grassroots people on the new National Development Plan proposal.
Mr Bulilevu said majority of the iTaukei population in the country depended on social welfare assistance every month to sustain their households.
Despite, iTaukei, owning majority of land in the country, their inability to access their own resources is what makes the struggle to earn an income well.
He challenged the Minister to give them authority on resources they owned under their landowning unit (mataqali).
“We don’t want to rely on Government as long as we get the authority to utilise our resources, we will be able to lift ourselves out of poverty,” he said.
“When we are able to utilise our resources, we will be able to help Government by supplying raw materials such as timber, gravel, etc.”
Some of these laws and regulations enacted by Government bodies pertaining to hindering the villager’s ability to access resources, was a factor of the never ending poverty cycle, he said.
As village headman, Mr Bulilevu, wants to better serve and guide the welfare of his people. He is a member of the Seaqaqa District Council Development Committee and believes that despite Government having a good share of ministers from Vanua Levu, developments were still limited.
“I have seen people in the village, and most of them are relying on welfare. I don’t want this country to become a majority welfare recipient nation,” he said.
In a bad experience which Mr Bulilevu encountered, he and his people were stopped by an environment officer from extracting river gravel for their housing development.
“We took some gravel and did some upgrading works in our village, but, environment officers stopped our good course.”
Village requires machinery support
Mr Bulilevu asked the minister for provision of machinery for farm preparations.
“We need machinery. We have running to Seaqaqa and Dreketi for machinery. We can’t rely on traditional farming implements if we want to improve our livelihood with good production,” he highlighted.
They have proposed to form a cooperative and want the Ministry of Agriculture to help them with a tractor and modern farming tools. Mr Prasad agreed on issues raised and said such consultations allowed them to revisit challenges faced by the grassroots people.
“We need to strengthen our provincial administration, our iTaukei administration and change the advisory councillor’s mindset to work with Government to help grassroots people,” he added.