CABINET DECISIONS 3 OCTOBER 2023

The People’s Coalition Cabinet held its 16th meeting this year.
 
The decisions include the following:
 
1. 2024 Public Holidays
 
Cabinet approved the 2024 Public Holidays as follows:
 
New Year’s Day                        -         Monday 01 January;
Good Friday                              -         Friday 29 March;
Easter Saturday                          -         Saturday 30 March;
Easter Monday                           -         Monday 01 April;
Girmit Day                                -         Monday 13 May;
Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna Day         -         Friday 31 May;
Prophet Mohammed’s Birthday -         Monday 16 September;
Fiji Day                                     -         Thursday 10 October;
Diwali                                        -         Friday 01 November;
Christmas Day                           -         Wednesday 25 December; and
Boxing Day                               -         Thursday 26 December
 
The dates for the 2024 public holidays were confirmed after consultation with the:

* Shree Sanatan Dharm Pratinidhi Sabha of Fiji for the celebration date of Diwali;
* Fiji Girmit Council to celebrate Girmit Day;
* Fiji Muslim League for the celebration date of Prophet Mohammed’s Birthday;
* Fiji Council of Churches for the celebration dates of the Easter Holidays;
* Ministry of iTaukei Affairs, Culture, Heritage and Arts on the celebration of Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna Day; and
* Office of the Solicitor – General for celebration of New Year, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and Fiji Day.
 
The list of public holidays for 2024 will be published in the Gazette.
 
2. Uplifting of Public Service Vehicle Permit Freeze for Licensed Hire, Licensed Rental, Licensed Minibus and Licensed Carriers
 
Cabinet approved the uplifting of the freeze on PSV permits specifically for Licensed Hire (LH), Licensed Minibuses (LM), Licensed Rentals (LR) and Licensed Carriers (LC).
 
Cabinet agreed that a review be undertaken for the remaining PSV permits, namely Road Route License (RRL), Licensed Taxis (LT) and Road Contract License (RCL), before a decision is taken on the current freeze. 
 
A nationwide freeze on the issuance of PSV permits was implemented in 2011 to allow the LTA to undertake a comprehensive review on the demand and supply of PSV permits and to assess and determine the future viability and sustainability of Fiji’s land transport industry given its various key players and their respective financial interests.
 
Consequently, this comprehensive review was not undertaken. However, over the years, the LTA legislations were reviewed and comprehensive changes made to the law and the way permits are operationalised.
 
LTA administers an estimated total of 8,816 permits nationwide. The majority of the permits administered are for the Central and Western division.
 
Following a nation-wide consultation, an uplift in the freeze for the LH, LR, LM and LC has now become a necessity particularly post COVID, and due to the increase in activities within the Tourism industry.
 
LTA is currently reviewing the processes and requirements for remaining permits – RRL, RCL, and LT. For the RRL and RCL, the RRL Guideline is currently under review.
 
The review will also require comprehensive consultation with all RRL permit holders prior to finalising the guideline.
 
As part of the review, assessing and analysing Land Transport Appeals Tribunal decisions as precedence to improving the processes of the dealing with all permits, particularly RRL.
 
Due the challenges faced for the issuance of taxi permits through the taxi barrel draw and the two standards of taxi permits in the country, the LTA is currently undertaking further review and identifying an alternative way to distribute taxi permits.
 
Comprehensive consultations with relevant stakeholders such the Ministry of Local Government, Municipal Councils, and iTaukei Land Trust Board (iTLTB) to better identify and standardise the best standards for administering taxi permits will be undertaken.
 
3. Suspension of Daylight Saving
 
Cabinet approved the suspension of Daylight Saving and appropriate legislative changes will be considered including the repeal of the Daylight Saving Act 1998 (Act).
 
Fiji observes daylight saving under the Act which empowers the Minister for Employment, Productivity, and Industrial Relations (Minister) to order any period of consecutive days between the beginning of October and the end of April, as a daylight-saving period.
 
Fiji has observed daylight saving since it was initially introduced in 1998. The intention was to benefit both the public and private sector.
 
The last daylight saving observed in Fiji was from 20 December 2020 till 17 January 2021.
 
4. Cabinet Approves Flu Tracking Fiji Project
 
Cabinet approved a Flu Tracking project to improve community-based respiratory illness surveillance in Fiji.
 
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is funding the expansion of FluTracking, with the support of Hunter New England Health, Beyond Essential Systems and DFAT’s Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security.
 
FluTracking is a crowd-sourced, online health surveillance system used to detect disease outbreaks and epidemics across Australia and New Zealand. Running since 2006 in Australia and 2018 in NZ, the system provides a real-time source of syndromic surveillance data to augment other existing systems.
 
Global experience of the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that countries need to have the capacity to prevent, prepare for, and respond to existing and emerging communicable disease outbreaks.
 
Therefore, early detection of cases of a new disease or an increase in an existing (endemic) disease is critical to rapid response and containment of any outbreak.
 
Traditional communicable disease surveillance, including in Fiji, is health facility-based i.e. the trend of a disease is monitored by counting the number of patients visiting the health facilities with signs and symptoms of that disease and/or laboratory test results specific to the disease.
 
Essentially the system is able to produce an alert that cases are rising only after people come to be checked by a healthcare worker at a health facility.
 
Since outbreaks begin in the communities and the earliest signs that an outbreak is occurring is visible within those communities, it is important to enhance the ability to detect these early signals through community-based surveillance. 
 
The Flu Tracking Project (Project) between Hunter New England Health and Fiji CDC will set up FluTracking using crowd-sourced data from voluntary participants for surveillance of respiratory illnesses such as influenza-like illness (and potentially other illnesses e.g. diarrhea).
 
After registering for FluTracking, volunteers will be emailed a weekly survey requesting answers to questions on the presence or absence of key symptoms e.g. fever, cough, runny nose, shortness of breath, changes in taste or smell, headache.
 
The expected impact of a more sustainable community-based surveillance system (as opposed to traditional health facility-based systems), is a more timely and measured public health response.
 
This involves escalation of public health strategies that focus on early recognition of danger signs (and thus early intervention) and focused attention to vulnerable populations to mitigate against severe disease and death.
 
5. Memorandum of Understanding to Enhance Risk Communication Capacity for Ministry of Health & Medical Services
 
Cabinet approved a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ministry of Health and Medical Services (Ministry) to enhance risk communication capacity.
 
The recent pandemic and disease outbreaks demonstrated the need to effectively provide critical information to the public and counter misinformation in the health sector.
 
The MOU is expected to build appropriate capacity in risk communications within the Ministry of Health and Medical Services, and other key Government agencies such as the Department of Information.
 
It will also enhance communication, messaging, awareness and promotion of public health measures that are being implemented by health professionals on the ground.
 
USAID funds international development in the areas of improving economic growth, food security, global health, education and democracy and they are currently supporting work in environment, health and governance in Fiji
 
USAID intends to invest FJD$222,809.00 in this partnership.
 
6. Investment Case for Tobacco Control in Fiji -The Case for Scaling up Implementation of the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
 
Cabinet approved the release of the Investment Case for Tobacco Control in Fiji (Report) in the public domain.
 
Tobacco is a health and sustainable development issue. Tobacco consumption and production causes early death and disease, results in high health costs and economic losses, widens socio-economic inequalities, and impedes progress across the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
 
Every year, tobacco use kills more than 1,200 Fijians, with 71 percent of these deaths among individuals under age 70 (i.e. premature death).
 
Fiji signed and ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) on 3 October 2003 and on 11 July 2013 signed the Protocol to Eliminate the Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products and ratified this on 24 April 2019.
 
The Investment Case Report was completed through collaborative efforts of the Fiji Ministry of Health and Medical Services (Ministry), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Secretariat of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Research Triangle Institute International (RII).
 
To accelerate Tobacco Control, the Report recommends that Fiji implement five priority tobacco control measures over a span of 15 years effective from year 2020 to be able to achieve its SDG 2030 Agenda Global Goals and 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

These five recommendations are as follows:
 
*increase cigarette taxation to reduce the affordability of tobacco products (WHO FCTC Article 6);

*enforce bans on smoking in public places to protect people from tobacco smoke (WHO FCTC Article 8);

*implement plain packaging (WHO FCTC Article 11 Guidelines, and WHO Article 13);
*enforce a comprehensive ban on all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship (WHO FCTC Article 13); and
*support reducing tobacco dependence and encourage cessation by training health professionals to provide brief advice to quit smoking (WHO FCTC Article 14).
 
These recommendations will be implemented through appropriate consultation with all relevant partners to ensure that Fiji’s tobacco control measures are effective in protecting public health while compliant with the WTO obligations.