Fiji's newest political party outlines its manifesto

Transcript

The newest political party to be registered in Fiji is outlining its manifesto in Suva.

The Fiji United Freedom Party has released a list of 28 policies, and says it hopes to gain five to 10 seats in the Parliament at the September election.

The party's leader and spokesperson on education, religion and i-taukei affairs, Nayagodamu Korovou, says the party would slow down capital works and redirect tax money to bring down the cost of food, electricity and water.

He spoke to Alex Perrottet.

NAYAGODAMU KOROVOU: Right now, this Government is using that amount of money on capital projects and we want to thank them for that [but] as we come in I think we are going to slow down on capital projects. We will keep all capital projects on hold and then we will focus our development on the people like reducing the cost of living.

ALEX PERROTTET: You are also aiming to create more than 50,000 jobs in the first year. Another huge and ambitious target. How are you going to achieve that?

NK: There will be businesses set up in all the villages in Fiji. We will start from youth groups. We will expand on agriculture...and then we will expand our military... There's no women in our military, they will be trained in the medical, and in the tailoring, and all these things. We want to expand the military so that it becomes the security for health and also provide the security for food for this country apart from what they are doing right now.

AP: And do you think that Fiji women will put their hand up for a job in the military?

NK: I think so.

AP: Look, you want 14 ministers for each province. Is that prompted by concern about the people in the parliament not necessarily being answerable to a geographic constituency?

NK:  I think so. What we want to create is - we are looking at the long-term plan where we will start creating ministers for each province and take away all the DOs and all the commissioners... In the long run we are trying to decentralise our government to each province. In the long run maybe each province can run their own government and the main government can provide them with a budget. We found out that if each province had a new minister they would be able to be looked after well and we are going to remove all ministers for water, education, all these things will go. All these departments will be run by a permanent secretary and they will report directly to the Prime Minister's office.

AP: Looking at the upcoming elections, September 17th is not too far away - what is your aim in terms of seats in the parliament?

NK: What we will hope for is to get some seats inside the parliament - not in the opposition but in the Government. So that we can influence the Government to be able to believe in our model and then we implement this model.

AP: And how many seats do you think you might pick up?

NK: Right now we are looking at five to 10 seats.