PM responds to key issues

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Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka. Picture: SOPHIE RALULU

1. Beating the system by Nishant Singh of Lautoka

While the national minimum wage has been increased to a paltry $5 an hour from April 1, 2025, some companies are circumventing the system in order to avoid paying their employees the mandated rate by reducing work hours. Companies that slash hours to keep overall wages low while appearing compliant on paper are definitely exploiting this loophole. This punitive and damaging approach to keep payroll costs low effectively nullifies any positive benefit that the wage bump might have had. It totally undermines the purpose of a minimum wage altogether, which is supposed to ensure a baseline standard of living. This practice of fluctuating hours has become quite prevalent in the retail, hospitality and the garment sectors, where with shortened hours, employees on minimum pay continue to live from paycheck to paycheck while the cost of basic living is escalating by the day. Are there any labour watchdogs or unions actively tracking or reporting on this ambiguity?

FT: Is the government aware that some employers are dodging the new $5 minimum wage by slashing work hours? What’s being done to stop it?

PM: We live in a nation of trust where we expect and trust that everyone will do according to law. The Fiji Inland Revenue and Customs Authority is an independent institution of government, and they have systems including jet systems that help detect loopholes and those that try to beat the system. The government also relies on responsible citizens who suspect that some employers are not paying their employees the right wages and salaries. I call on Nishant Singh to report incidents he knows, and by this response to his letter, ask FRCS to go and ask Nishant Singh to substantiate his claim and bring those employers to answer for their actions.

2. Minimum wage by Tukai Lagonilakeba of Nadi

Who is policing the implementation of the gazetted minimum wage? Which companies are exempted as the majority workers we speak to say they are still earning $2.60, $3.40, $4.05 an hour and no increase to $5 with effect from April 1, 2025. The Cabinet ministers’ salary increase took 20 minutes to approve by vote in Parliament and Minister of Finance Biman Prasad was fast the next day to see all of them were paid accordingly asap and they are all laughing all the way to the bank every day. Can’t Biman Prasad and Agni Deo Singh see to that all registered companies comply instantly please.

FT: Prime Minister, with the $5 minimum wage gazette on April 1 yet many workers still earning as little as $2.60 an hour, who is policing its implementation? Which companies are exempt? What steps will you take to ensure ministers Prasad and Singh enforce full compliance immediately?

PM: I ask Lagonilakeba to name those companies and also ask FRCA to investigate immediately.

3. FNPF pension justice by Dewan Chand of Namadi Height in Suva

At school I was taught that justice delayed is justice denied. I wonder if this is also true in the case of FNPF pensioners who were brutalised by the previous government and the then FNPF Board in 2012. I believe the action was clearly illegal as a legally binding contract was broken and an obnoxious Decree 51 was used to block the way of pensioners to seek justice! However, the current Government is far more sympathetic towards the FNPF pensioners as these were reverted to pensions as it stood in 2012. This act has been a great relief and was seen as a very compassionate move.

I am sure that the movers and shakers of this move must have harvested heaps of blessings. After meeting the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General, the core group of pensioners was delighted that we were on a right trek. However, since then there seems to be a lull pertaining to the FNPF pensioner issue. Time is the essence as pensioners continue to die by the day. Pensioners have pitched their hope in Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s assurance that actions will be taken to expedite this matter to find a solution. FNPF pensioners are clinging to that hope as we see light at the end of the tunnel! Could there be delivery of justice in the form of pension restitution as Easter celebrations gift!

FT: Prime Minister, justice delayed is justice denied . After reversing the 2012 FNPF pension cuts and assuring us of expedited action, when can surviving pensioners expect full restitution of their pensions?

PM: The group championing the group that lost out on the change of law had come to solicit my help, and while I sympathise with them (as I am also one of those forced to take out a lump-sum payment and withdraw from the Provident Fund Scheme, until I was elected again into Parliament in 2018), I wanted them to understand that the action taken by the Bainimarama Interim Government was executed by a decree, and can only be changed by a legislation, and I have asked the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General to start working on it. I agree with Mr Chand that justice delayed is justice denied’ and many have died and will not benefit from any remedial revisions by legislation that will take place. Some of the decrees have been put beyond reproach by certain provisions of the 2013 Constitution and may not be questioned – that is one of the reasons the Coalition Government attempted to pass the Bill to Amend the Constitution.

3. Migration drama by Ajay Kumar of Nadi

It takes a $200,000-plus package minister and many months to tell us about that various platforms within the Immigration Department are not talking to each other, which is why there are very long processing times for passports and unwanted people are getting in and out of the country. If that is so, why on earth do those who are responsible, from director down, have not flagged the problems before? Would that not be incompetent? I would rather say that the various systems have been deliberately kept apart so that those in power could use the loopholes to play the games which we all know about. Specifically, these would be granting entry to shady businessman and also getting local corrupt fugitives slip out after exchanging golden handshakes. Am I wrong?

FT: Prime Minister, it took a high-paid minister months to reveal that siloed Immigration IT systems are behind passport delays and security lapses. Why did senior officials, from the director level down, fail to flag these critical issues earlier. Do you view this as mere incompetence or deliberate facilitation of corrupt loopholes?

PM: The faults have been around for many years, and it will take more than a year to repair the faults and mistakes of the sixteen years under Bainimarama.

4. Military exercises by Jope Tarai, Caqiri, Nasinu

A media organisation released video evidence of military exercises undertaken in the middle of a Narere residential area. The video captured residents seemingly surprised and curious. This is concerning, reckless and irresponsible on a number of levels; 1. A residential area is exposed to military warfare tactics, even if it is just a mere exercise. Were the residents’ approval sought? Let alone informed insight. Children are exposed to this for heaven’s sake! If an accident were to happen, how would that have to be accounted for? 2. Normalising guns/weapons in a civilian space should be a major concern for civil society and also related rights’ bodies such as the Human Rights Commission. This is an intrusion on civic spaces – literally! The blurring of the boundaries between warfare/securitisation/militarisation and civic spaces is a sleepwalking trend to a militarised society. This will be the last frontier of a possible transition from whatever democratic space (as little of that as we have for the moment) to a fully consolidated militarised state. 3. Have we forgotten the military marches undertaken by a former Commander through the public and civic spaces in 2006? Have we forgotten the subsequent event that happened later that year? That set the course of an excruciating 16 years of civil liberties being treated like a rag doll by a militarised regime. The public, the taxpayers of Fiji need to be treated with greater decency and safety of respect, even if this is just a mere exercise. This is dangerous! We have been here before, and the children of Fiji do not need to go through another one of these needless demonstrations of unsanctioned power!

FT: Prime Minister, how do you justify conducting military exercises in the middle of Narere’s residential area without informing or obtaining consent from residents – exposing children to potential harm, normalising weapons in civilian spaces, echoing the intrusive militarisation of 2006, and what immediate steps will you take to prevent such reckless exercises and hold those responsible to account?

PM: The residents of any area where security forces carry out exercises must be informed prior to the exercise starting, as laid out in RFMF standing orders (RFMF SO’s) and standard operating procedures (SOP’s). We are not told whether the video recording has a date and time indication, which I can use to ask the Acting Minister for Defence and Veterans’ Affairs to provide me accurate information to give Tarai a better and fuller response.

• A public notice was issued before they conducted the exercise.

5. Clean up pleaseby Juki Fong Chew of Nadawa, Nasinu

I have noted the surge in dengue fever cases and even deaths have occurred in certain areas within Fiji. Nadawa is a populated area and now with a major project underway, the drainage system is clogged with stagnant water and overgrown grass. I hope the relevant municipality will do their rightful duties in cleaning the drains along Borete Rd in Nadawa. I have noted partial cleaning done by the relevant authorities. As a ratepayer, we are obligated to pay the annual full amount and not partial payment.

FT: Prime Minister, with dengue fever on the rise and drains along Borete Rd in Nadawa still clogged and only partially cleared despite full rates being paid, what immediate steps will your government take to ensure complete drainage maintenance, hold the responsible municipal authorities accountable, and protect residents from mosquito–borne disease?

PM: Before I came to write this response to Juki Fong Chew’s letter, I drove out with my OPM press photographer, to take some photographs to show that it is not the Nasinu Town Council with the health authorities in Nasinu that should sit up and listen (or read) – we must all play our part, to keep our own surrounds clean and not just push it down drain or downstream, because it’ll pile up and block the whole waterway for the next rain to fill up ready for the mosquitoes to relish and breed some more! It needs a ‘whole of community’ co-operative effort.

6. Dengue outbreak by Nishant Singh of Lautoka

With more than 5000 cases recorded and counting, why isn’t the MOH not declaring this mosquito-borne disease an outbreak? Are they waiting for the cases to reach 10,000 and beyond before an announcement is made? And with the West recording the highest number of casualties, there has been no sign of spraying campaigns in targeted geographical locations being launched by the Lautoka City Council. What are they waiting for? Is the council facing budgetary and resource constraints as usual to carry out this much required exercise? The lack of action by local authorities to contain the spread of this lethal virus is disappointing indeed.

FT: Prime Minister, with over 5000 dengue cases recorded – particularly heavy in the West – why has the Ministry of Health not yet declared an outbreak or initiated targeted spraying campaigns, and will you commit to mobilising the necessary resources (including additional funding for councils like Lautoka) to contain this escalating crisis immediately?

PM: A dengue outbreak declaration has been made for the Central and Western divisions, and the 5000 quoted by your writer, Singh, is the cumulative total so far, and sadly there has been three deaths. As I said in response to an earlier question from reporters, dengue and other preventable diseases are public health issues and we are all responsible for prevention and alleviation by maintaining clean environments and destroying mosquito breeding grounds and means like discarded tyres, containers and stagnant waters.

7. FT: Prime Minister, you and the late chief of Navatu were close in age and shared a lifelong bond as sons of Drekeniwai. What is one memory or lesson from him that you hold closest to your heart – something that perhaps shaped your journey as a leader?

PM: I am about 10 years older than him, and I was sitting on the side of the village green in my village in 1957, my last year at Drekeniwai District School, before going to Provincial School Northern, Bucalevu, Taveuni in 1958, when his late father Ratu Joji Rabete Wainiu and late mother Alisi got married in a double wedding ceremony – the other was the late Lemeki Naitini and the late Adi Ulamila Rabe. Both Lemeki and Ratu Joji Rabete had just returned with the First Battalion, Fiji Infantry Regiment from fighting against Communist Insurgents in Malaya between 1952 and 1956.

8. FT: When you will return to Navatu to mourn his passing, what does the loss of your chief mean to you personally – not just as Prime Minister, but as a kai Drekeniwai who once looked up to him as a pillar of your vanua and your childhood?

PM: I have had to ask the Governments of Singapore and Indonesia to make adjustments so that I can arrive back at Nadi on Friday 25th, to fly Nadi-Savusavu on Saturday 26th for the funeral, and Labasa-Nausori on Sunday 27th and be in Parliament on Monday 28th.

9. FT: Prime Minister, given growing public frustration over economic hardship and governance gaps, do you believe your Coalition has done enough to restore trust in leadership – or is it time to re-evaluate how your government communicates and delivers on its promises?

PM: Government constantly and consistently looks at ways in which ‘to make end meet’ – a taxation system and level to ensure the survival of all! Of all the cries of hardships we hear, Fiji has not had a death by starvation, but we have a lot of deaths by such diseases as diabetes, hypertensions and heart diseases due to overeating the wrong types of food when the best and most nutritious and health foods are naturally available and do not need to be purchase, but simply planted in our backyards or potted!

10. FT: Prime Minister, with proposals for a 30 per cent gender quota for women in Parliament gaining traction, do you believe now is the right time for Fiji to legislate such a move?

PM: There is no need to legislate it. We do not have a compulsory voting Legislation, nor do we yet need a quota based system.

11. FT: Prime Minister, what is the current vetting and approval process for overseas travel by Cabinet Ministers. Were you concerned about approving the Minister for Defence’s extended 42-day absence, given the critical nature of his portfolio and pressing domestic challenges

PM: Yes, but I considered this to be his farewell visit to the Force Commanders and the Headquarters of the PKO in UN and MFO in Rome, but more importantly for the morale of the troops who have lived through some very trying times since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israeli population and the escalation into a Regional and Global conflict and tension.