Government and large corporate institutions need to seriously consider implementing flexible working hours and work-from-home options to address the issue of traffic congestions in the country.
In response to a question from a delegate at the State of Economy breakfast event at the GPH in Suva yesterday, Reserve Bank of Fiji governor Ariff Ali said the central bank had now introduced flexible hours allowing staff to start early in the morning and leave early in the afternoon.
He said in his meeting with staff, it was found that a lot of them spent more than two hours every morning going to work and similar time returning home in the evening.
“These are young people with young families. As an economist, I think this is a big waste of our resources when people spend three to four hours just coming to work, and they couldn’t be more productive,” Mr Ali said.
“I feel that Government and the large corporates need to look at this seriously because it’s all our people coming to work.”
He said Government also now needed to decentralise, and to move away from all the offices being in Suva.
“We should decentralise some of it, between Nasinu and Nakasi, so that the traffic goes the other way also; and large corporates as well.
“I think we need to start thinking of how each one of us can contribute to that. Otherwise, let’s be honest, there’ll be traffic.”
Meanwhile, Minister for Finance Esrom Immanuel said Government was working on addressing the traffic congestion issue around the country.
For Labasa, he said they already had plans for diversion and a new bridge; and while there were plans being looked at for the Suva-Nausori corridor, nothing had been finalised yet.
