THE Fiji Council of Social Services (FCOSS) is calling for a greater share of government spending to be directed towards infrastructure and community development projects, arguing that too much of the National Budget is being absorbed by government operations.
Speaking during an interview on The Fiji Times’ online portal The Lens@177, FCOSS program manager Josaia Tokoni said the organisation’s work in communities had revealed a disconnect between large ministry budgets and conditions on the ground.
“Over the recent years we’ve seen that government budget, most of them have gone towards operation and the running of the office, including staffing and the office equipment, transport,” he said.
“However, when we come to communities, we didn’t see that in the community.”
Mr Tokoni said FCOSS had previously proposed that a larger proportion of the National Budget be dedicated to projects that directly benefit citizens.
“During our submissions to the Constitutional Review Commission, we made the call for it to be entrenched in the constitution, a cap of 40 per cent of our national budget should be towards operation and 60 per cent towards capital projects or special projects that goes back to the people.”
He said communities would benefit from increased investment in roads, market infrastructure and services that improve access and strengthen resilience.
“We would love to see more towards capital projects, not only just capital projects, but capital projects that ensure improvement infrastructure, that also help with greater access for people to services.”
Mr Tokoni also called for stronger coordination among government agencies and civil society organisations to address climate change and disaster preparedness.
“We now have a fuel crisis. We’ve learned from COVID-19, and you can see in the media that we are expecting a super-El Nino this year.
“So we are hoping that this budget is going to respond to that.”
