The FijiFirst government paid international movie producers $200 million, owes them another $200m, and spent $90m on the Fijian Broadcasting Corporation over the past decade and $60m on Walesi.
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Professor Biman Prasad highlighted this in his ministerial statement in Parliament yesterday where he also lamented the previous government’s construction of costly rural hospitals, remote roads and multi-million-dollar police stations without any cost benefit analysis being done.
He labelled the FjiFirst administration’s expenditure “poor public investment choices”.
“We spent ridiculous amounts of money on FBC and Walesi.
FBC got more than $90 million over 10 years and Walesi over $60m,” the Deputy PM said.
“We have spent millions in the last 10 years in lease costs for new government vehicles. In the last 10 years we have added 8000 more public servants to the government payroll — rising costs and salary bills but no sound and sensible solutions to increase income.
“The former government offered the most generous cash incentives in the world to international film producers. This wasn’t just tax reductions.
“We wrote them cheques to come here. We have paid them over $200m so far in the last 10 years and we must now find another $200m to pay the rest. I will say that again – there is still another $200 million to pay.”
Prof Prasad said the sum was not part of Government’s debt figures, but rather the additional sum of money that the state owed. ”
So as government debt grew larger, the previous government ignored all the warnings. They were warned that we were not ready for an economic shock.
“In a sentence, we spent like there was no tomorrow. And then tomorrow arrived, in the form of COVID-19. The government’s response to this crisis, too, lacked imagination but our debt ballooned to more than 90 per cent of GDP.
“With economic recovery that number has fallen back to 85 per cent. However, from this point, it will be a serious challenge to reduce it but reduce we must. Because we cannot bequeath a debt-burdened nation to our future generations.”
