Rabuka aims to reduce poverty rate
ERADICATING poverty is more than just giving the poor more spending money, says The People’s Alliance leader Sitiveni Rabuka.
In an interview on The Lens @ 177 with The Fiji Times West bureau chief Anish Chand, he said effectively addressing poverty meant finding suitable employment, making essentials affordable, assisting their own efforts in earning an income and securing their future.
“We have to provide policies and programs that take them out of the poverty situation,” the former prime minister said.
“They might be part of the solution.
“Government should not take on the total onus of removing poverty.
“It has to be a partnership between the Government and those who are struggling with poverty.
“And we’re talking about finding suitable employment or they have to be employed in daily activities, making life affordable, the essentials of life affordable, making their future secure if they are working, making sure that the (Fiji National) Provident Fund is there for their providence.”
Mr Rabuka said industries such as copra would need to be revisited with opportunities like extra virgin coconut oil and charcoal to be fully explored.
He also said there was an urgent need to address overregulation.
“We’re putting too many licences on people, we are overregulating people who want to sell their produce on the side of the road.
“They’re being regulated, ‘you cannot sell there, you have to go there’.
“We must facilitate the so-called poor people’s own effort to get out of poverty.
“We help them.”