As many as 400,000 people may be living below the poverty line, says former governor of the Reserve Bank of Fiji Savenaca Narube.
And he has called on Government to conduct a Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) as soon as possible to determine the true state of poverty in Fiji.
“When you talk about the economy, you talk about economic growth, gross domestic product (GDP), those are universal indicators of the economy. But we should look at poverty,” he said.
“That’s where the measure of economic well-being is.”
In an interview with The Fiji Times on the state of the economy, Mr Narube said the lack of a national economic strategy was as worrying as not knowing the true state of poverty in the country.
“I hope this Government will update the study that was done by the previous government on poverty and income disparity.
“I have no confidence in the statistics of the previous government. No confidence whatsoever because they have been heard and seen to doctor those kinds of statistics, which is not what we want.
“We want an independent measurement of those statistics. “So the poverty level, according to them, is around 30 per cent of the population. My calculation is 40 per cent of the population.”
With the cost of living the way it is, Mr Narube said more people were being pushed over the poverty line.
“So I think it’s around 40 per cent and that is humongous for Fiji.
“At 40 per cent, that’s 400,000 people that are living below the poverty line.”
Mr Narube said any effort to move the economy forward should begin with a new independent HIES.
“That’s the yardstick that we need to measure – any government. Then from there, devise a road map, a clear one, a sectoral road map to take us to where we should be in say, five years to 10 years. Right now, we don’t have anything,” he said.
