For generations, political debate concerning iTaukei interests has centred on land, race, identity, chiefly authority, religion, indigenous rights, constitutions and political power. All matter, but ultimately, they should be tested against a simpler question: How much have the lives of ordinary iTaukei actually improved? Not how much political representation exists. Not how much constitutional recognition an institution receives. Not how iTaukei compare politically with another ethnic community. The ultimate measure should be the wellbeing of the ordinary iTaukei household. And there is an uncomfortable contradiction. Extraordinary resources, but what outcomes?
ABOUT 91 per cent of Fiji’s landmass is iTaukei land. Yet the revised 2019–20 Household Income and Expenditure Survey estimated the iTaukei poverty rate at 36 per cent, compared with 20 per cent among Indo-Fijians. iTaukei accounted for 74.8 per cent of people below the national poverty line.
The 2023–24 Employment and Unemployment Survey recorded unemployment at 6.5 per cent among iTaukei and 4.5 per cent among Indo-Fijians, despite identical labour-force participation of 51.4 per cent.
And in 2024, the Fiji Indigenous Business Council estimated that indigenous businesses constituted less than 5 per cent of about 14,600 “mainstream businesses” operating in Fiji. That is an FIBC estimate, not an independently verified national business census.
These indicators have limitations. They come from different periods and measure different things, while geography, rural poverty, informal activity, remittances, education and access to markets also affect outcomes.
Nor does owning land automatically create wealth. But the central question remains: Why has extraordinary ownership of land and natural resources not translated into stronger broad-based prosperity for ordinary iTaukei?
These figures do not prove elite capture. They establish a development problem requiring explanation.
Ownership is not empowerment
Perhaps part of the problem is that we confuse ownership with economic empowerment.
Land Ownership ≠ Productive Utilisation
Resource Ownership ≠ Economic Agency
Political Representation ≠ Economic Empowerment
Constitutional Protection ≠ Household Prosperity
Owning 91 per cent of Fiji’s land does not mean iTaukei should possess 91 per cent of Fiji’s wealth. Land differs enormously in location, fertility, infrastructure, accessibility, environmental importance and commercial potential.
Nor should every hectare be commercialised. Land can legitimately be retained for customary use, subsistence, conservation, cultural purposes and future generations. This is not an argument for individualising or selling communal land.
The real question is: Where communities want economic development, how effectively can they convert their resources into economic opportunity while retaining ownership of the underlying asset?
That requires more than ownership. It requires economic agency.
Who can initiate development?
Who decides?
Who approves?
Who can invest?
Who receives the returns?
Can those returns become productive capital? and
Who is accountable when the system fails to deliver?
These are institutional questions.
Institutions are the missing link
There is a chain between resources and prosperity:
Resources Institutions Productive Opportunity Enterprise & Employment Income & Assets Intergenerational Wealth
Owning the first link does not guarantee the last. Institutions sit in the middle. They determine who can initiate, who decides, who invests, who benefits and who is accountable.
So the question is no longer simply: Who owns the resources? It becomes: Where is the resource-to-prosperity chain working and where is it breaking? That is where the question of elite capture begins.
What is elite capture?
Elite capture should not become another political slogan. In simple terms, it occurs when decision-making authority, resources or benefits intended for a wider population become disproportionately controlled by a relatively small group without sufficient accountability to the people they are intended to serve.
But: Elite Leadership ≠ Elite Capture
Every society needs capable leaders, expertise and delegated authority. The warning signs arise when concentrated authority is accompanied by restricted participation, concentrated benefits, weak accountability and persistently weak outcomes for the wider population. So the test becomes:
Who decides?
Who benefits?
Who controls resources?
Who can participate?
Who holds decision-makers accountable? and
What has improved for ordinary people?
Ethnic disparity is not elite capture. This distinction is crucial. Comparing iTaukei and Indo-Fijian socioeconomic outcomes can reveal disparities. It cannot establish elite capture. A higher iTaukei poverty or unemployment rate tells us there is a disparity. It does not tell us why it exists.
To investigate elite capture, we must also look within the iTaukei population.
Who controls important decisions?
Who receives income generated from communal resources?
Who gains access to commercial opportunities and development finance?
How broadly are those benefits distributed?
Can ordinary owners meaningfully influence decisions concerning resources held in their name?
Can capable people outside established networks enter leadership? and
Who holds institutions accountable when they underperform?
The distinction is fundamental:
Ethnic disparity demonstrates a development gap. Elite capture requires evidence of concentrated power or benefits combined with inadequate accountability. That is the evidence we should seek.
Perhaps the missing question is institutional
Ordinary iTaukei do not simply lack resources. They collectively own extraordinary resources. Nor can the question be reduced simply to political power. Fiji has experienced long periods in which governments and institutions claiming a mandate to protect or advance iTaukei interests exercised substantial authority.
So what happened between those resources, that authority and ordinary household outcomes?
Perhaps part of the answer lies in the institutions connecting them. Elite capture is one possible explanation. It is not the only one.
Geography, historical disadvantage, education, political instability, access to finance and markets, commercial networks and cultural preferences may all matter.
The objective should not be to choose the explanation that best suits our politics. It should be to determine what the evidence shows.
Ask the right question
We sometimes hear the grievance reduced to this: The vulagi became wealthy while the indigenous owners became poor, but that may direct attention towards the wrong question.
Instead of asking:
q Why did the vulagi become wealthy?
Ask:
Why haven’t extraordinary iTaukei resources produced greater prosperity for ordinary iTaukei?
Instead of asking:
Which ethnic group has too much?
Ask:
How effectively are institutions converting iTaukei resources into broad-based opportunity for their owners?
Instead of looking outward for someone to blame, examine the system connecting resources to outcomes. That brings us back to the title: Are ordinary iTaukei victims of elite capture?
The evidence presented here does not answer that question. It tells us why we should investigate it.
If elite capture exists, its fingerprints should be measurable:
Who controls decisions;
Who receives benefits;
How widely opportunity is distributed;
How institutions are held accountable; and
What they actually deliver.
And if the evidence shows elite capture is not the principal problem, we should accept that too.
Because the objective is not to prove elite capture.
It is to demand evidence of advancement.
Part 2: We have exercised political and institutional power, but what has it delivered? Read this next Saturday
SUNIL CHAND is an engineer and reform strategist with over 30 years of senior leadership experience across manufacturing, regulation and higher education, including strategic and operational roles at Fiji Industries Ltd/Pacific Cement (1994–2003), FCCC (2007–2009) and USP (2010–2019). The views expressed herein are his own and not those of this newspaper.
