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Tuesday 5Th July 2016 TUESDAY, 5TH JULY, 2016 The Parliament resumed at 9.32 a.m. pursuant to adjournment. HONOURABLE SPEAKER took the Chair and read the Prayer. PRESENT All Honourable Members were present, except the Honourable Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation; the Honourable Minister for Local Government, Housing and Environment, Infrastructure and Transport; and the Honourable Assistant Minister for Youth and Sports. MINUTES HON. LEADER OF THE GOVERNMENT IN PARLIAMENT.- Madam Speaker, I move: That the Minutes of the sitting of Parliament held on Monday, 4th July, 2016, as previously circulated, be taken as read and be confirmed. HON. A. SUDHAKAR.- Madam Speaker, I second the motion. Question put. Motion agreed to. COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE CHAIR Acknowledgement of Honourable Members and Visitors in the Gallery I welcome all Honourable Members to another day of Budget debate today. I warmly welcome the teachers and students from Delainamasi Government School who are in the gallery this morning. I also welcome those watching proceedings on television and the internet and listening to the radio. Thank you for taking interest in your Parliament. RESUMPTION OF DEBATE ON THE 2016-2017 APPROPRIATION BILL 2016 HON. SPEAKER.- We will continue from where we last left off from the batting list, and I will now call upon the Honourable. Salote Radrodro to take the floor. HON. S.V. RADRODRO.- Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, the Honourable Prime Minister, the Honourable Leader of Opposition, the Honourable Ministers and Honourable Members, I rise to take this opportunity to respond to the 2016-2017 Budget Address and I also take this opportunity to acknowledge and express a big vinaka vakalevu to all the hardworking civil servants for putting this Estimate together, and I would also like to acknowledge the children in the gallery, ni sa yadra vinaka, ragone. (DELAINAMASI GOVT. SCHOOL.- Ni sa yadra saka.) 1830 2016-2017 Appropriation Bill 2016 5th July, 2016 HON. S.V. RADRODRO.- Madam Speaker, my response will basically cover three areas: first a Budget overview, the Civil Service; and on Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation. At the outset, Madam Speaker, and from a holistic perspective, let me say that this Budget drags Fiji further down the road of disaster and I do not support it. (Chorus of interjections) HON. S.V. RADRODRO.- Madam Speaker, this Government, the most authoritarian, careless and inept government that Fiji has ever seen. Madam Speaker, our people are screaming in pain over crime, poverty, high food prices, prices in the health and education sectors, problems with infrastructure, traffic congestion and the loss of business competitiveness. This Budget does nothing to directly ease the pain. HON. OPPOSITION MEMBERS.- Hear, hear! (Chorus of interjections) HON. S.V. RADRODRO.- Madam Speaker, this Government has become numb to the needs of the people of Fiji. They have become deaf to the cries of our people. They have become blind to the crisis facing our country. They have become mute to the abuse of the positions they hold in trust for the people. Therefore, Madam Speaker, the fact that the Honourable Minister has not presented any national development plan in this House speaks a thousand words, and indeed it is clear that this Government has lost its way. Madam Speaker, from the outset, the Honourable Minister predicated his Budget on a false premise. He announced that this Budget will build on the foundations laid by his previous budgets but, Madam Speaker, may I refresh the Government on what they promised the people of Fiji in 2015. The 2015 Budget theme was “Turning Promises into Deeds”. I have called it “Turning Promises into Debts” and may I ask, how many of these promises were actually achieved? For example, Madam Speaker, the Nairevurevu ni Cagi community, which is just there between Sakoca and Kalabu, still do not have access to electricity, and imagine when will the maritime and other isolated communities receive electricity. So what happened to the promise, “improved access to electricity and electricity subsidy”? Madam Speaker, youth associated crime is so high and an effective alternative strategy to addressing these problems and also income-generating is sports. For example, the youths of Nawanawa are still asking, where is the rara ni qito or playground, as promised in the 2015 and 2016 Budgets? Where are the jobs? People are asking, where are the free medicine? For most time, patients are told they are out of stock and why are more women undergoing caesarean birth delivery? Why is there an increasingly high amputation with diabetic patients? Why are civil servants feeling insecure in their jobs, and asking why only doctors are getting a salary review in 2017? The poor and the marginalised are asking, why bring back the 9 per cent VAT in 2016 on basic food items and making lives more a struggle and miserable, especially after TC Winston? The school children, especially those in rural areas like those in Dakuilomaloma Village, who continue to walk six kilometres to school daily are asking, where is the free transport? Madam Speaker, these are some of the things that people care about but under the FijiFirst Government, this is not the case. 5th July, 2016 2016-2017 Appropriation Bill 2016 1831 Furthermore, Madam Speaker, the 2016 Budget theme was, “The Future, a Strong Fiji, a Fair Fiji, a Healthy Fiji”, but the fact that the Honourable Minister repeated so many of the unfulfilled promises he made in the 2016 and 2015 Budgets tells us that there is, indeed, no foundation on which to build, and may I kindly remind him that the house built on sand will not stand … HON. OPPOSITION MEMBERS.- Hear, hear! (Chorus of interjections) HON. S.V. RADRODRO.- …and a clear indication on Government’s failed Budget is the unprecedented level of unemployment, crime and poverty that Fiji is faced with right now. The Budget year has now changed to 1st August, 2016 to 31st July, 2017 but the justification for the change has failed to convince our people. For example, the fact that the 2016–2017 Budget does not have a theme, tells the people of Fiji that this Budget has no focus, no vision and no direction. Indeed, I must say that this Government has lost its way. (Hon. Member interjects) HON. S.V. RADRODRO.- Madam Speaker, the Budget Address amounted to nothing more than a waffling attempt at justifying ineptitude, plus warmed-over servings of the usual platter of promises, but as a framework for the way forward, it failed miserably to address any of the major issues facing Fiji today. Even when his Budget Address pretended to touch on critical issues, the Honourable Minister demonstrated a spectacular misunderstanding of the root causes of these matters, and consequently proposed a number of thoroughly inappropriate remedies. Madam Speaker, five months after TC Winston, people are still living in tents and temporary shelters, children are still attending classes in tents and private homes like in Avea Villlage. The assistance given to these people who are mainly villagers and rural dwellers with no permanent source of income is just so small, that the process to rebuild their homes will be for the next five years or even more. Madam Speaker, we know as women, mothers and grandmothers that our home is paramount and without proper houses and sanitation, these people will fall back into poverty. The Government’s limited action tells the story that they do not care about our people, they do not care whether these people will have a roof over their head or not. Madam Speaker, what is more worrying is that, the Honourable Minister has decided to continue stubbornly along his misguided policy direction, based on a clear misunderstanding of macro and micro economic concepts and issues, convinces me that this Government is lost, blindly feeling its way along, oblivious at the nation’s problems but determined to do all in its power to convince itself and others that the nation is not in crisis. Madam Speaker, the Government has lost its way. Madam Speaker, the FijiFirst Government have a passion for catchy sounding phrases which bear no resemblance to the policies programmed. Todate, they have not addressed our basic needs, empowered our people, ensured anyone’s survival except the Government Ministers, and it is obvious that we will not be moving onwards after this vacuous Budget. Having already wasted over billions of dollars in the past years and failing to accomplish what they promised, the Honourable Minister now comes to Parliament with another smoke and mirrors trick, another 1832 2016-2017 Appropriation Bill 2016 5th July, 2016 attempt to hoodwink the people of Fiji with an erratic quick-fix here, a plaster there and a ludicrous prognoses for relatively simple ailments, once again attending to the symptoms and not the root causes of the ailments or problems. For example, Madam Speaker, one of the nagging issue now is whether the promise by the Honourable Minister and I quote; “To help shift people quickly to recovery, to get people out of temporary shelters and back to their livelihoods”, would be achieved? Madam Speaker, people are asking, can the Government afford to increase the housing assistance of $7,000 for new homes and $3,000 and $1,000 for home repairs from this 2016–2017 Budget? Madam Speaker, I would like to answer, ‘yes’. The Government can but the Government lacks the will to exercise prudent financial management through virements and transfers from budgeted allocations to boost “Help for Homes” Initiative. For example, Madam Speaker, Government can easily transfer $60 million from Head 50 and let me give you some examples on which they could transfer: 1) SEG 10; Item 15 – Marketing Support for Fiji Airways - $18 million; 2) SEG 6; Item 5 – Public Service Broadcast (Radio) - $6.6 million; and 3) SEG 6; Item 6 – Public Service Broadcast (TV) - $4.6 million.
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