WE are losing qualified veterinarians because they are offered much better salaries abroad than in the country, says Minister of Agriculture and Waterways Vatimi Rayalu.
He said the country was facing shortage of veterinarians because veterinarians were migrating overseas.
“Despite collaborative efforts by tertiary institutions and the ministry to up-skill them, the end result would still be that these veterinarians were migrating overseas for greener pastures, simply because of the better salary package offered abroad,” Mr Rayalu said.
“The important thing to note is that we are losing our qualified vets day by day.
“That should be underlined in red, the fact that we are losing them. We have taken a number of years to have them trained to become qualified vets under the Fijian Government fund and scholarship, only to lose them simply because we can’t offer them the kind of salary that they demand.”
He said the salary offered for the profession in overseas countries was beyond competency level with starting rate of 80 grand.
Mr Rayalu said the reality of offering the same rate was close to nil, so they were working on trying to retain vets by putting them in a special category of scientist similar to that of the Ministry of Health.
