FIJI’s employers are up in arms about the use of millions of dollars in training levy collected annually from them by the Government, which they say have been redirected to fund other things with only a small fraction going into the original purpose of training workers.
A submission made yesterday to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Economic Affairs by Fiji Commerce and Employers Federation (FCEF) board member Deepak Rathod on the Work Care Bill (Bill Number 7 of 2025) and Accident Compensation Amendment Bill (Bill Number 8 of 2025) revealed that of the total $23million collected in 2022 through 40 percent of the one percent FNU levy required by law for employers to pay Government, only $2.3million was available for training.
“The original training levy distribution pre-2019 was 100 percent for workforce training,” Mr Rathod said.
“The current levy distribution at this point is 50 percent to government-funded medical schemes, 40 percent to accident compensation commission, 10 percent to FNU training programs.”
He said the proposed levy distribution is now 50 percent to government-funded medical schemes, 40 percent to the Work Care Fund under the Employment Ministry, 10 percent to FNU training programs.
“That remains unchanged.”
Mr Rathod said UNESCO findings revealed that only 41 percent of the previous training allocation actually reached employers.
“So, you can see what happened is that over the years, the employers have been missing out on reimbursements for training programs that they’ve been holding.”
FCEF is the umbrella body for Fiji’s private sector and is financed by its members, who are the employers in the private sector.