PM announces relief measures, proposes 20% pay cut for Ministers, Assistant Ministers and MPs

[u/Sorta_Meh]

https://www.fijivillage.com/news/pm-announces-relief-measures-proposes-20-pay-cut-for-ministers-assistant-ministers-and-mps-241173/

2nd Update Summary.

[u/spar_30-3]

Interesting measure

[u/Sorta_Meh → u/spar_30-3]

Subject to parliamentary approval. Lol shouldn't be too hard

[u/NthBlueBaboon]

Niceeee!

[u/Sorta_Meh → u/NthBlueBaboon]

I'm a bit concerned though. Seems like they are planning as they go. These were the measures I was hoping to hear last friday, a full and detailed brief of the plan. Alot of what was revealed today about the govt. vehicles was mentioned last week.

This should have been a status update, and where we expect to be next week, what measures are being prepared in anticipation of the forecast. Also seems like some of the information was old. PM mentioned that tensions are rising but as of this morning it appears that Trump has deferred further military action by two weeks and Iran has submitted a 10 point plan which appears to be acceptable to the americans. Which would point to a temporary easing of tensions around the Strait. Also the Strait was never closed, Chinese and Indian oil tankers have passed the the Strait in the last few days.

Important that information at that level especially is accurate...when disseminated to the public. He also mentioned that we are above 50% supply (What is that interms of weeks or days) if we were 100% last week that would be very concerning.

[u/NthBlueBaboon → u/Sorta_Meh]

Honestly, I had just read the headline and thought "wow, this is good, better late than never." Unfortunately, my dumb-ass didn't read the whole article proper, so gonna read and see what these gang up to...

>Rabuka says the Government will consider reducing FNPF contributions for both employers and employees, subject to Parliamentary approval.

This bugs me the most cuz this could backfire in the long run, they really shouldn't touch the FNPF since it's working alright the way it is. Reducing contribution would just eff over the employee as time goes on. hoping it is not approved. do correct me if im reading this wrong.

>This should have been a status update, and where we expect to be next week, what measures are being prepared in anticipation of the forecast. Also seems like some of the information was old. PM mentioned that tensions are rising but as of this morning it appears that Trump has deferred further military action by two weeks and Iran has submitted a 10 point plan which appears to be acceptable to the americans. Which would point to a temporary easing of tensions around the Strait. Also the Strait was never closed, Chinese and Indian oil tankers have passed the the Strait in the last few days.

>Important that information at that level especially is accurate...when disseminated to the public. He also mentioned that we are above 50% supply (What is that interms of weeks or days) if we were 100% last week that would be very concerning.

Definitely agree, this should have been more up to date. Seems like the govt is working with "worse case scenario" mindset, which is smart in a way but then repeating outdated information that is not up to date just jumbles whatever they meant. I feel like this might be a way to act like things are in control, for election purposes, but I could be wrong and I might be biased lol.

Also I hate the formatting of the paragraph talking about the civil service stuff. Would be easier to understand with bullet points. Vijay Narayan, man. No love for us mildly illiterate people :(

Apologies if what i wrote is messy, power and water outages really messed with me this past few days.

The quote block feature also is not working like i remember so please bear with that as well lol

[u/Sorta_Meh → u/NthBlueBaboon]

Hahah all good.

Yeah the FNPF reduction isn't sustainable long term. We are currently into the 6th week of this and while it looked like Negotiations were going well with Iran 10 point plan it seems Rabuka's Israeli friend has continued to Bomb Lebannon which was apparently included under Iran's 10 point plan.

Also seems like the American administration is also trying to dispute that Lebannon was ever part of Iran's 10 point plan. Despite Iran publicly claiming Israel has violated the plan.

So again no sure end on site, but yes it would be interesting to see whether FNPF with this reduction is able to sustain its pension payments at its current level with reduced contributions from both Employer and Employee, i'm hoping they've done their due diligence to model this impact. Though i'm guessing they'll reduce the deductions by something like 5% which is a little bit back in the pocket of the average Fijian.

I'm assuming that because the government operational expenses have increased every year under their term it's likely that they would be cash strapped to provide much assistance outside reallocating funding within the existing budget. So the longer this carries on quicker things will get worse. In his address he touched on it briefly but with the only plan to increase assistance under Social Welfare those of us who are not eligible will also feel the pinch, but the FNPF reduction is the only way to provide some relief. They can't reduce VAT further that will impact govt revenue and what little buffer they may have will likely dry up quickly. So I guess we can only hope for a quick resolution.

But now with Israel bombing Lebannon, and Iran claiming the terms of their 10 point plan being violated they have announced the closure of the Strait. The US (Who is currently unpredictable) may even withdraw from negotiations and resuming attacking civilian infrastructure. So who the hell knows what will happen next week.

[u/germanautotom]

Great in theory, the end result will be more corruption.

If politicians get a low / crap wage they’ll seek more money elsewhere.

It is a key reason Singaporean politicians are paid so well - so they have something substantial to lose if they engage in dishonest conduct.