Opposition Member of Parliament Rinesh Sharma is calling on the Government to immediately allocate at least $100,000 to equip Government boats with personal locator beacons, saying the recent rescue of six health workers in Lau exposed serious gaps in maritime safety.
Mr Sharma said the funding should be used to install personal locator beacons on at least 200 Government vessels used by public servants travelling across Fiji’s maritime waters.
His call follows the ordeal of six members of the Ministry of Health’s Ono-i-Lau outreach team, whose boat suffered engine failure and began taking on water while travelling from Moce to Oneata. The team survived by wearing life jackets and using the vessel’s wooden floor planks as flotation devices before being rescued about a day and a half later by the crew of Goundar Shipping Services’ Lomaiviti Princess 12.
“Let us be very clear about what saved these six Fijians. It was not technology. It was not a system. It was a passing ferry and the good eyes of its crew,” Mr Sharma said.
“Our medical officer, our dental officer, our charge nurse, our peer educator, our health inspector and our dental assistant floated in the open Pacific for a day and a half because there was no way for anyone to know where they were.”
Mr Sharma said a registered personal locator beacon costs less than $900 and would significantly improve the chances of a rapid rescue.
“Activated in the water, it transmits an exact position to search and rescue satellites within minutes. Those six would have been located before dark on the first day. This is just one of the devices and I am sure there are more which the Ministry can procure.”
He noted that the 2026-2027 National Budget allocated $647 million to the health sector, including $477 million to the Ministry of Health for salaries, medicines, medical supplies and biomedical equipment.
“One hundred thousand dollars is one hundredth of one percent of that allocation. It is not a question of affordability. It is a question of whether we have thought about it at all.”
Mr Sharma said the proposed funding should cover the installation of beacons on Government vessels, registration of the devices to both boats and travelling officers, training in their use, and a replacement programme for ageing fibreglass punts used for outreach work.
“We ask nurses and doctors to cross the Lau waters to serve Fijians who would otherwise see no health worker at all. We send them out in small fibreglass punts. The least we owe them is a boat that can take the sea and a beacon that brings them home.”
“Fiji got lucky. Luck is not a maritime safety policy.”
