Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka says only new legislation can overturn the Bainimarama government’s controversial FNFP decree.
In a direct response to a Letter to the Editor by Dewan Chand, who accused the former government of “brutalising” FNPF pensioners and blocking legal recourse through Decree 51, Mr Rabuka acknowledged the legal weight of the issue.
“The group championing the group that lost out on the change of law had come to solicit my help,” the Prime Minister said in his weekly A Conversation with the PM column.
“And while I sympathise with them (as I am also one of those forced to take out a lump-sum payment and withdraw from the Provident Fund Scheme, until I was elected again into Parliament in 2018), I wanted them to understand that the action taken by the Bainimarama Interim Government was executed by a decree, and can only be changed by legislation, and I have asked the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General to start working on it.”
Mr Rabuka agreed that assertion time is running out for many elderly pensioners.
“I agree with Mr Dewan Chand that ‘justice delayed is justice denied’ and many have died and will not benefit from any remedial revisions by legislation that will take place.”
He also pointed to significant constitutional barriers that stand in the way of swift reform.
“Some of the decrees have been put ‘beyond reproach’ by certain provisions of the 2013 Constitution and may not be questioned – that is one of the reasons the Coalition Government attempted to pass the Bill to Amend the Constitution.”
The 2012 changes to the FNPF scheme – pushed through by decree – cut pensions and barred pensioners from challenging the decision in court.
While the Coalition Government has since reverted pensions to pre-2012 levels, many are still waiting for full restitution and legal redress.
Chand’s letter described the pension cut as the breaking of a “legally binding contract,” and said pensioners are clinging to Prime Minister Rabuka’s earlier assurances of justice.
While Rabuka stopped short of offering a timeline, he assured the issue is being examined at the highest legal level in government.
