SODELPA Leader, Sitiveni Rabuka believes that the 2018‑2019 national budget is sugar coated, irresponsible and lacks vision for the long term.
Rabuka highlighted this in a press conference saying that the budget does not care for the Fijian families as claimed by the Minister for Economy.
He says as a nation we are now in a situation where we have a lot of debt because we continue to live beyond our means.
The SODELPA Leader says the presentation of the 2018/2019 Budget by the Minister for Economy creates a rosy picture of "empowering all Fijian families and laying out new and better economic opportunities which gives a lot of false hope to ordinary Fijians.
Rabuka says while there are merits in increasing maternity leave from 84 days to 98 days and the introduction of the 5 days paternity leave, in addition to the other incentives, such as for first time home buyers, these are token initiatives, but civil servants want "job security"first before anything else.
He says once there is job security, then these incentives will be more meaningful to them.
Rabuka also stated that there is a better way of helping new home owners rather than giving handouts to a select few.
However when questioned by Fijivillage on Rabuka's thoughts on the proud families who have became home owners under the first Home buyers grant, he says compared to today people have had to struggle to own a home in the past.
Meanwhile, the Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum had earlier stated that they have another bold and historic National Budget which is built on strong and stable Fijian families.
He also says that they have empowered hundreds of thousands of people with new jobs.
Sayed‑Khaiyum adds that there are also good initiatives for first home buyers.
Sayed‑Khaiyum says Fiji is running an operating budget surplus and they are only borrowing for capital projects.
He says back in 1996, the then Rabuka government took a huge amount of debt to bail out the National Bank of Fiji deposits.
Sayed‑Khaiyum says now many of the voices are trying to tell lies.
Sayed‑Khaiyum says this is deeply concerning as the President has said that the Fijian economy is something that everyone should protect.
He says this is not fair game.
The Minister for Economy also says that they did not want to play Father Christmas and just say that they are giving everything away.
He stresses that this is a true family budget.
The total revenue forecast for the 2018/2019 National Budget is $4.236 billion while the total expenditure is $4.65 billion.
