Two partnerships,
Bread and butter issues
In the choice between the Bainimarama/Sayed-Khaiyum and the Rabuka/Prasad partnerships, I need not dwell too much on the bread and butter issues as I have covered these comprehensively in my recent The Fiji Times articles (FT 30/9/2022 “Fiji Voters and the 2022 Elections”), (FT 12/11/2022 “Workers, voters and the 2022 Elections”) and (FT 5/11/2022 “Voters and USP”: What government do you want?”.
These articles have pointed out that under the Rabuka Government there was excellent economic growth which raised incomes in Fiji and created jobs, all done with moderate increases in public debt more than matched by increases in national GDP and average household income.
In contrast, the Bainimarama/ Sayed-Khaiyum average rate of growth of the economy has been poor, while the growth of public debt has been astronomical, more than outstripping the growth of the economy. Public debt is now at an enormously high ratio to GDP so that repayment of debt will squeeze any future government’s ability to pay for essentials like health, education, and social welfare.
The rates of poverty under Bainimarama/Sayed-Khaiyum have increased dramatically, with the sad never-before situation that the Fiji public have even been deliberately denied the official statistics they need to compare with previous rates of poverty.
When the Government Statistician (Kemueli Naiqama) revealed the rates of poverty of indigenous Fijians (a normal practice in previous years), he was sacked, a sad indictment of the Public Service Commission, which has appointed a whole batch of senior civil servants just prior to the election.
I have also written previously (FT 30/7/2022) about the Minister of Economy misusing statistics to imply that the incidence of poverty in Fiji was decreasing when the reality was that it had probably gone up to around 50 per cent.
When NGOs like FRIEND (Sashi Kiran) and FWRM (Nalini Singh) highlighted the worrying increase in poverty, they also were attacked by the Minister for Economy, as were also attacked the leaders of opposition parties like Prasad, Chaudhry and Narube.
But the Fiji public should know that a very concerned former Bainimarama supporter (John Samy) just a week ago wrote to me (email 22 November 2022) “As you are aware the sharp rise in the incidence of poverty is one of the major issues/problems affecting our motherland, Fiji”.
He informed me that he is organising and personally attending a Lautoka walkathon in
January 2023 to raise funds for his charity organisation Foundation for the Education of Needy Children in Fiji (FENC Fiji) whose focus is on the “poorest of the poor”.
This year they extended support to about 7000 children, clearly a significant number who have fallen through the cracks of the Government’s otherwise worthy attempt to provide free education to all children in Fiji. Of course, this objective is also shared by the Rabuka/Prasad partnership.
The sad state of the Fiji economy can be directly attributed to the one-man control of all government policies by a lawyer. The huge increase in public debt without the necessary increase in national income to pay for it, can be attributed to this one minister approving massive unwise increases in expenditure by public enterprises such as Fiji Roads Authority, whose boards have been totally under the control of this one minister.
The collapsed sugar industry has not been revived (last month’s The Fiji Times has an advertisement for a consultant to draw up a Strategic Plan!), no new industry has been created for 16 years, and Fiji has been saved by remittances from abroad amounting to more than $900 million this year.
The partnership between Rabuka and economist Professor
Biman Prasad cannot do any worse and will probably do much better.
Rule of law and constitutionality
Ultimately, all governments and economies must be regulated by a constitution which fosters investor confidence, growth of the economy, jobs and incomes – the “bread and butter” issues that are the most important for voters.
After the 1987 coup, Rabuka imposed the biased 1990 constitution whose electoral system was heavily biased in favour of indigenous Fijians. But just after six years of ruling Fiji, Rabuka formed a multiracial partnership with the Opposition Leader then (the late Jai Ram Reddy), and set up an independent Reeves Constitution Review (the late Sir Paul Reeves, the late Tom Vakatora and the late Professor Brij Lal.)
The resulting Reeves Report was then used as a basis for the 1997 constitution into which the Fiji Parliament (including me) added the all-important “Multi-Party Cabinet” provision whereby all major parties and ethnic groups with at least 10 per cent of the seats were entitled to be in Cabinet. That 1997 constitution was unanimously passed by both Houses of the Fiji Parliament and I believe is the last legitimate constitution.
In sheer contrast, Bainimarama and Sayed-Khaiyum produced
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