Members of the Fiji Public Service Association (FPSA) have been urged to save their money for a rainy day.
While speaking at the FPSA Lautoka Branch annual general meeting on Saturday, association general secretary Rajeshwar Singh said civil servants should not be complacent during these challenging times.
“For the civil service, we have been lucky to escape a pay cut,” he said.
“We don’t know how long because if you read the economists and in fact in today’s (Saturday’s) Fiji Times, the former governor of the RBF saying that we are hit by about $10 billion of debt while our GDP is $9 billion so this is a very alarming situation.
“Had we been a private company we would have already been insolvent, but in any case we will see how it goes.
“The economists and others tell us, I think, that cash is running out very quickly.”
He said if in case a mini budget was announced early next year, civil servants could be affected.
“Government might decide to come with a mini budget in January and when I said that we were very lucky, don’t count on it too much.
“It might kick us later on. I am not predicting anything but the financial situation is really bad.
“This is just a thought that we have to be careful and I think we need to save for rainy days.”
He explained that the association had been hard at work fighting for members who have been affected by reduced hours.
Mr Singh said their members from the Land Transport Authority (LTA) were successful in their fight to reinstate lost hours after the COVID-19 pandemic reached Fiji.
“They were hit with a 30 per cent pay cut but we were lucky to file a dispute and win in the arbitration court and they have to go back and reinstate the pay of some of our members in the LTA.”
