Transcript
In reply to a question from the opposition, Fiji's Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum was adamant there was no data on ethnicity.
"No such data was collected. He needs to understand that. There has been no aggregation of data based on ethnicity under the 2017 census, none whatsoever. So they need to move away from it. They think we are hiding it. We are not hiding it."
But the Fiji Bureau of Statistics had earlier told media it was waiting for a directive to release the figures.
And in a tweet it said:
"Just because we had been advised to wait on a directive to release it, DOES NOT mean we do not value it. Ethnicity will always be an important component of any demographic analysis. All statisticians will tell you that."
Bulutani Mataitawakilai from the non government body, the Citizens' Constitutional Forum, says someone's not telling the truth and CCF wants the confusion cleared up.
He says the information's important for policy-making and the country's development.
"Fiji is a unique country. It's known as a multi-cultural country with different diversities, ethnic groups, religious backgrounds. Our history also tells us because of ethnic divisions was a cause of political instability in Fiji."
Mr Mataitawakilai says the information would also help raise awareness about multi-culturalism and anti-discrimination, a strong point, he says, of the current government.
"We have to talk about this because we cannot shy away from ethnic issues in a country where there are people of different ethnic groups that have been living for ages and like in any developed and developing countries they have ethnicity data."
While observers say the lack of data on ethnicity in a national census is highly unusual, Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said a person's ethnicity is of no relevance for the services that a government provides.
He said the opposition was obsessed with the ethnicity issue.
