Iliesa
Tora, RNZ Pacific senior journalist
A
Fijian high chief has blasted a forum on the economy held in
Suva last week, labelling it as a “talkfest” that featured
“the author of our troubles” and excluded everyday
people.
The two-day ‘State of the Fijian Economy
Dialogue 2026’ was organised by Dialogue Fiji, a civil
society organisation based in the capital in its efforts to
create a national space for meaningful discussions on Fiji’s
economic situation.
The forum, described by local
media as having the country’s “top economic leaders”
included speakers and panellist from the former and current
government ministers to business people to lawyers to
academics and civil society organisations, among
others.
One of the high-level panels on the second day
included former Attorney-General and Minister for Economy
Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, former Reserve Bank of Fiji governor
and Unity Fiji Party leader Savenaca Narube, former Fijian
Prime Minister and Labour Party Leader Mahendra Chaudhry,
and former deputy prime ministers in the current coalition
government Manoa Kamikamica and Biman Prasad.
Dialogue
Fiji CEO Nilesh Lal told local media that the purpose of the
dialogue was to congregate various stakeholders to discuss
the economy.
“It’s also very timely given that Fiji is
going to see its next national budget delivered in a couple
of weeks time. So I hope the recommendations that emerge out
of this event are also going to influence the budget,” Lal
told reporters.
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However, Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba Mara,
who goes by Gone Turaga Bale na Tui Nayau, Sau ni
Vanua ko Lau, Tui Lau as the traditional head of
the Lau Province, said while the dialogue was presented as
an economic forum, what took place was a
talkfest.
“Much was said, but little of substance was
offered,” he said via a statment on Monday.
Ratu
Tevita, who is the son of Fiji’s first prime minister, said
he was commenting “not as a partisan … but as [someone]
entrusted by the vanua with a duty to our people, a
duty that does not stop at the edge of any party or any
government”.
He said Fiji is a nation at the
crossroads, with its political, social, and economic life
under strain.
The event turned into politicking game
scoring and the steady undermining of the Sitiveni
Rabuka-led coalition government, “dressed up as civic
dialogue”, he said.
He said a nation is not led by
political posturing, nor by those who gather mainly to
criticise the government.
“It is led by those who
bring real solutions to the table and put their shoulders to
the work,” he said.
He claimed that there were no
workable answers to the problems that keep ordinary Fijians
awake at night and no credible plan to repair the economy
and restore the livelihoods.
“There was no serious
reckoning with the drug crisis now spreading through our
communities – a scourge that, left unchecked, threatens to
turn Fiji into a semi-narco state and consume a whole
generation of our young.
“There was no answer to the
alarming rise in HIV infections among our people. There was
no plan for our failing hospitals, our broken roads, our
crumbling infrastructure.
“And there was too little
honest regard for the Constitution Review now under way –
the most important work of all, by which we may finally set
right the foundations of our
nation.”
Credibility
Ratu Tevita questioned
the inclusion of Sayed-Khaiyum.
He said Sayed-Khaiyum
was at the forefront as the lead on Fiji’s economy for over
10 years during the FijiFirst administration and was not fit
to be lecturing the country on what to do to fix the
economy.
“We are still digging ourselves out of a
flawed constitution forced upon the people against their
will, the deliberate dismantling of our indigenous Fijian
institutions, the Great Council of Chiefs chief among them,
and an economy so badly mismanaged that it has left this
country buried under a debt of more than $10 billion,” Ratu
Tevita said.
“A debt now carried by every Fijian, and
by our children and theirs. To seat the author of our
troubles before us as the authority on their cure does not
lend this dialogue credibility; it makes a mockery of
it.”
He said the organisers owe the nation an
explanation on why Sayed-Khaiyum was included at
all.
On the other hand, he called for the country to
support the work done by the Rabuka government.
He
said the coalition inherited disorder it did not create and
is working on rectifying the wrongs and building steady
steps to bridge the economy.
“It is not without fault
– no government is – but it is working, steadily and in good
faith, to put our house in order, and it deserves our
patience while it does.
“Fiji is in a better place
today than it was four years ago. We are freer than we were.
We must hold the course and keep building – together, with
discipline and with purpose.”
Missing the
nation
Ratu Tevita said the absence of the people who
matter was a big mistake, and Fiji lost an opportunity to
have real discussions on the state of the economy and put in
place solutions to drive the economy forward.
He
pointed to the number of politicians and government
officials who were invited and spoke at the event.
He
said a nation is far more than its government and such
dialogues should include people in their towns and villages,
the faiths they hold, and the institutions that bind them
together.
“Leave any of these out, and what remains
cannot speak for the whole,” he said.
“With that in
mind, consider who filled the room at the Grand Pacific
Hotel, and who did not.
“The speakers and panellists
were drawn mainly from politicians and government officials.
That is not the nation. Where were the people of this land,
in whom our shared identity is rooted?
“Where were the
leaders of our faith communities, of every creed, who watch
over the conscience of the nation? And where, above all, was
the ordinary villager, the worker, the small business owners
just trying to get by?”
He said these are the heart
and soul of this nation and a dialogue that does not seat
them cannot claim to speak for them.
“It matters
little which officeholders or party figures attended. What
matters is that the nation itself was not there.
“A
conversation about Fiji’s future, held among the few and
over the heads of the many, may fill a hall in Suva; it
cannot speak for the country beyond its
doors.”
Fijians watching
Ratu Tevita said
Fijians are watching and leaders need to be
accountable.
People are tired of listening to talks
without action, he said.
“True leadership is not
measured by a fine speech in Suva. It is measured by what
follows when the talking is done. Whether the cost-of-living
eases, the sick receive proper care, the young find hope and
purpose, our roads carry our people safely, and the
foundations of our nation are made sound once
more.”
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