Frank Bainimarama says Winston has drained economy

Transcript

Fiji's Prime Minister says the country's economic growth is now 'down the drain' after Cyclone Winston.

Frank Bainimarama was visiting the remote interior village of Nadalei in the Western Division and brought relief supplies donated by Vodafone.

It was the first aid to reach the village, devastated by the category five cyclone last Saturday night.

Fifteen families there are living in the catholic school classrooms, but Mr Bainimarama says school will resume on Monday and those families will have temporary shelters this weekend.

He held a talanoa session with the community, where people spoke about their injuries and asked for government help.

He told Alex Perrottet that he was grateful for the international aid, but that Fijians now need to support each other.

FRANK BAINIMARAMA: Well that's the character of the Fijian people. We may have gone through the worst hurricane ever, but the character still comes out.

ALEX PERROTTET: Also the roads are in such good nick. The development in the roads in the last five or ten years, surely that's helped you get supplies there on time?

FB: Yes. That's something I have talked about in the last couple of days. In the last couple of weeks I was talking about the Fiji economy that has been going up, and going at a rapid rate. All that went down the drain in 24 hours when Winston came around. So we need to go back, get back on track. That's what I was supposed to tell the public at large. We need each other's support to get back to where we were before.

AP: But there is good disaster risk management. Obviously, in the last decade, I can't believe how good the roads are and the bridges along the western division were straight up and running again. People were clamouring for aid the first few days, a bit slow originally but now piles of aid coming here from Vodafone, and what countries are you thankful for?

FB: The whole international community - NZ, Australia, Japan, France, China, India. Even our Pacific neighbours - Samoa, Vanuatu. They've all pitched in, and we are very grateful for that.