Sports plays a very pivotal role in ensuring not only comradery and friendship but also helps us in mitigating the risks we have in non-communicable diseases.
This was highlighted by the Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum at the Nadroga Netball Competition today.
He stated that Fiji has one of the highest rates of diabetes in the world so playing netball, rugby or soccer can help individual with their health.
Sayed-Khaiyum says that 50% of the population today are below the age of 27 and many young parents love the idea of drinking all the sweetened drinks and they see that as a way of hydrating themselves but they should drink water.
The Attorney-General also talked about the 2018/2019 budget and he highlighted that the focus they have had is on families.
Sayed-Khaiyum says they have now increased the number of weeks for maternity leave, they have also for the first time introduced a payment for mothers whose family is earning less than $30,000 and says that they are giving $1000 for the birth of the child but there is a condition attached to it.
He adds that the condition is that you must register the child at the Births Deaths and Marriages Office.
He says one of the mistakes that came out, it said that the account will be under the mothers name, in fact the account will in the child’s name and the mother can withdraw the funds.
Sayed-Khaiyum stated that about six years ago they had sent out a team throughout Fiji and they found out that there was something like 65,000 Fijians who did not have birth certificates and some of them were 40, 50 and 60 years old who went through an entire life without a birth certificate.
Meanwhile, he stated that have allocated over $10 million to the Fiji Sports Commission to help individual organisations.
