A people’s budget
Timoci Gaunavinaka, Nausori
Congratulations to the FijiFirst Government for another brilliant National Budget announcement that took into consideration many complicated factors our nation faces. In the face of a downturn in the world economy caused by factors far beyond our control, we still announce a budget that benefits a wider cross section of our population.
The streamlining of various Government initiatives to benefit our people because they have been consistently abused by certain sectors is a wise and justifiable move. The rehabilitation work after Cyclone Winston is now coming to its end took over three years.
When we compare that with Cyclone Katrina that hit the west coast of the United States, the world’s biggest economy, it took them almost ten years to recover.
We still manage to hold our taxable threshold at 30 per cent while many of our regional neighbours, including Australia and New Zealand, tag theirs at more than 10 per cent below us.
We still manage to decrease VAT, continue with free education and other various initiatives targeted to benefit the marginalised portion of our people.
We are still committed to building various infrastructure for our whole population and continue with the wide decentralisation of Government services.
It appears that this budget has definitely reflected the wide consultation done to directly extract people’s true opinions where they enlightened the Government on various pros and cons and the wider impacts of its various policies.
We based our decisions on facts and not assumptions and rumours.
Of course, there will be sceptics such as Biman Prasad who claim that the FijiFirst Government spending spree has come to an end. What he knew, but never mentioned, was that these spending sprees included rehabilitation work after Winston, building roads and bridges, hospitals and health centres, municipal markets, court houses, police stations and fire stations and the whole infrastructure aid and assistance for our underprivileged people. These are not expenses that we pay annually and appear on every budget.
They are capital investments that will take 50 to 100 years to replace, thus upgrading the life of our people.
If we look back at the trend of our economy for the past five decades, we will see the many positives and negatives in our economic growth.
Whenever there is a drought, cyclone or political instability, our economy takes a deep dive below the crest of the waves. Whenever such events disappear, we again raised our head slowly above the water. We were so economically fragile.
Today despite been hit by cyclones, downturns in the world economy or threat of instability falsely created and fanned by the opposition, our economy still confidently and steadily grows.
We are now facing the tenth consecutive year of economic growth.
I know that a lot of people worked tirelessly to come up with innovative ideas to cushion the impact of any negative event and also make necessary adjustments so we can take advantage and thrive on any positive. But we must give a huge vinaka vakalevu to our Minister for Economy and his team for guiding the nation to another milestone achievement.
We salute you.