ALL governments have borrowed from Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF), not just the FijiFirst administration, says Attorney-General and Economy Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
“But just to let you know that we know when we say we borrow money domestically, a lot of people think that you know, this is a new phenomenon, that we only borrow money from FNPF but that’s not true,” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said during a 2021-2022 national budget virtual consultation on Sunday.
“All governments since we’ve gained independence have borrowed from FNPF.”
The A-G said in terms of financing, there was a gross borrowing of $2.75 billion.
“This included $1.4 billion to be sourced externally and $940 million to be sourced from the domestic market.
“So you know, as highlighted previously, we borrow from overseas and also domestically.
“We have in the past 10 to 15 years always maintained a configuration that we borrow more domestically.
“We borrow more from Fiji than from offshore, normally 70 per cent plus or minus 5 per cent is borrowed domestically and 30 per cent from offshore.”
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said because of COVID-19, that limitation had to be changed because Fiji had to do more offshore borrowing.
“It also helps us because when you borrow more from offshore, it means that you get more foreign exchange coming in, you get more for foreign currency actually coming into the country.
“We have funded the budget. In the first six months, we’ve accessed $530 million from the Asian Development Bank.
“The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank – this includes $424 million, which is about $200 million US from Asian Development Bank (ADB) and $106 million from Asian Infrastructure Bank.
“Currently a total of around $710 million external financings has been finalised, with the World Bank, the ADB, and of course, from JICA.”
