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The proposed 'A People's Charter' is a way to having a united and a better Fiji, as it will bring civil society from all walks of life to discuss solutions for the different problems that nation of Fiji faces, says the Interim Minister for Finance, National Planning and Sugar Industry, Mahendra Chaudhry. Speaking to the Department of Information, Mr. Chaudhry said the proposed 'A People's Charter' is the way, through which Government can find out as to why Fiji has these different problems and find solutions for them. "It is a way through to having a united and a better Fiji."ť Mr. Chaudhry said the coup cultures in the past that have only served the self-centered politicians have prevented different races to unite but the People's Charter will surely promote cultural harmony and diversity. "We all know that in the last 20 years Fiji has gone through a number of coups, which has set us back. And as a nation we have not been able to unite the different races together and often the politicians have exploited this particular issue. They played the race card to destabilize the country and achieve their own personal agendas,"ť he said. "We need to deal with what is fundamentally wrong with Fiji's politics, why can't we come together as a nation, we draw strength from our cultural diversity rather than exploiting it for political purposes. " He said the whole purpose of setting up National Council for Building a Better Fiji is to bring in the civil society from all works of life, to sit down, discuss and by consensus agree on a governance charter of Fiji. “It will be something that they want, the people want and it should be by consensus,” said Mr. Chaudhry. He said a number of issues have been identified and many people like the business communities, workers, and farmers of this country have been talking about these fundamental issues which have been there since independence but have not been dealt with and resolved. “There are number of issues that have been identified for instance, one is our electoral system that is race based and this is one of the reason of why we have racial politics because we select two thirds of our representatives to parliament on communal dependency. So communal politics is quite strong, we need to move away from that if we are to talk about united Fiji. Other issues that need to be looked at is discrimination in our country,” said Mr. Chaudhry. He said he hoped that once the Charter is in place the political parties would commit themselves to the principles in the Charter, which would form the governance of our nation. “It’s an exercise that I think that people of Fiji should participate. They must have the voice, as at the end of the day they will be the ones to decide what type of Fiji they want. So let us find a way where we can satisfy the legitimate expectations and aspirations of all our people.” Mr Chaudhry said everyone has been invited but there are people who don’t want to come and that’s their choice and as for now we can’t afford to put a delay to the People’s Charter. “And people who are opposing this are not talking in the best interest of the nation but to serve their own hidden agendas,” said Chaudhry. -End- No:1301 |
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