August, 15, 2022
No other Leader in charge of our nation, both during the era of Legislative Council when Fiji was a British Colony and during parliamentary democracy after Independence in 1970, has spewed venom and has been vitriolic against the Opposition except Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, said National Federation Party Leader, Professor Biman Prasad.
Professor Prasad said Mr Bainimarama’s insatiable appetite for power was making him sound more and more like a broken record with his ridiculous attacks against the Opposition parties. He said Mr Bainimarama, while opening almost all meetings of the Provincial Councils, has bragged about how much his government has done for the province and at the same time chastised the Opposition for lack of ideas and making baseless criticism against the government’s policies.
The NFP Leader said like his right-hand man and the defacto PM, Attorney-General and Economy Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, Mr Bainimarama was cooking statistics and serving them fervently in the hope of averting electoral disaster for Fiji First party because support for government is now in a state of freefall.
“While opening the Macuata Provincial Council meeting on August 10, the PM claimed his government had spent $170 million on the province since 2014 of which $55 million was for social pension, poverty benefit and disability schemes”.
“The Fiji First government allocated over $171 million as grants towards Fijian Broadcasting Corporation and Walesi since 2014 while providing families with incomes of less than $50,000 per annum only $1 per day or a total of $180 for 6 months per child under the age of 18 years”. “And when we point this out, we are being accused by the PM of re-doubling our selfish pursuit of power. This is coming from a Leader who grabbed power at gunpoint in December 2006”.
“It is also hypocritical of Mr Bainimarama to accuse the Opposition of not having any alternatives and ideas when his Economy Minister, having vociferously attacked our plan to zero-rate or make VAT free basic food and essential items in 2018, in the dumbest act of copy and paste of our manifesto, adopted the same policy in the Revised Budget announced in March”.
“So it is Mr Bainimarama, his right-hand man the Economy Minister and Fiji First which has run out ideas, resorting to spending borrowed money and piling huge debt and misery on our people”. “And this will be the bitter and painful legacy left behind by Mr Bainimarama when his Fiji First Party is banished into political wilderness after the elections”.