Opposition Member of Parliament Jone Usamate has defended the FijiFirst Government’s previous policies and claims Minister of Finance Professor Biman Prasad lacks imagination
In the lead up to this Friday’s budget announcement, via a statement, Usamate claims Prof Prasad is a one track mind who is trying to justify everything he does with the misguided and fallacious lies he espoused prior to the General Election.
The former Minister for Lands and Mineral Resources said in 2019, the Government had already put in measures to consolidate its fiscal situation then – Fiji’s debt to GDP ratio was below 50 per cent, prior to when COVID-19 struck.
“FijiFirst decided that we would look after our people in the Covid crisis of 2020—and it worked. We kept our people safe, the civil service was fully maintained, unemployment relief was provided, and we borrowed at huge concessional terms with very minimal interest rates and with substantive grace periods.”
He highlighted the FijiFirst Government saw that there was a problem, and it set out to address it.
Usamate said the Government had to borrow and at that point the debt was manageable.
“Government also set out to make sure that we rebounded quickly… and that is what is happening now. Our Tourism is back up, and Fiji Airways has been ranked as the best in the region.”
He has also condemned the Fiscal Review Committee’s recommendation to the Government to remove the zero VAT on the 21 food items – which would have a drastic impact on our most vulnerable, especially with foreign induced inflation that we have been seeing lately.
Usamate said this would have made things worse—further exacerbating the dire situation of our most marginalized.
