Left to right: Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, Savenaca NArube, Mahendra Chaudhry, Manoa Kamikamica, Biman Prasad.
Photo: Facebook / Dialogue Fiji
A Fijian high chief has blasted a forum on the economy held in Suva last week, labelling it as a “talkfest” that featured “the author of our troubles” and excluded everyday people.
The two-day ‘State of the Fijian Economy Dialogue 2026’ was organised by Dialogue Fiji, a civil society organisation based in the capital in its efforts to create a national space for meaningful discussions on Fiji’s economic situation.
The forum, described by local media as having the country’s “top economic leaders” included speakers and panellist from the former and current government ministers to business people to lawyers to academics and civil society organisations, among others.
One of the high-level panels on the second day included former Attorney-General and Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, former Reserve Bank of Fiji governor and Unity Fiji Party leader Savenaca Narube, former Fijian Prime Minister and Labour Party Leader Mahendra Chaudhry, and former deputy prime ministers in the current coalition government Manoa Kamikamica and Biman Prasad.
Dialogue Fiji CEO Nilesh Lal told local media that the purpose of the dialogue was to congregate various stakeholders to discuss the economy.
“It’s also very timely given that Fiji is going to see its next national budget delivered in a couple of weeks time. So I hope the recommendations that emerge out of this event are also going to influence the budget,” Lal told reporters.
Ratu Tevita
Photo: Facebook / Ministry of itaukei Affairs
However, Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba Mara, who goes by Gone Turaga Bale na Tui Nayau, Sau ni Vanua ko Lau, Tui Lau as the traditional head of the Lau Province, said while the dialogue was presented as an economic forum, what took place was a talkfest.
“Much was said, but little of substance was offered,” he said via a statment on Monday.
Ratu Tevita, who is the son of Fiji’s first prime minister, said he was commenting “not as a partisan … but as [someone] entrusted by the vanua with a duty to our people, a duty that does not stop at the edge of any party or any government”.
He said Fiji is a nation at the crossroads, with its political, social, and economic life under strain.
The event turned into politicking game scoring and the steady undermining of the Sitiveni Rabuka-led coalition government, “dressed up as civic dialogue”, he said.
He said a nation is not led by political posturing, nor by those who gather mainly to criticise the government.
“It is led by those who bring real solutions to the table and put their shoulders to the work,” he said.
He claimed that there were no workable answers to the problems that keep ordinary Fijians awake at night and no credible plan to repair the economy and restore the livelihoods.
“There was no serious reckoning with the drug crisis now spreading through our communities – a scourge that, left unchecked, threatens to turn Fiji into a semi-narco state and consume a whole generation of our young.
“There was no answer to the alarming rise in HIV infections among our people. There was no plan for our failing hospitals, our broken roads, our crumbling infrastructure.
“And there was too little honest regard for the Constitution Review now under way – the most important work of all, by which we may finally set right the foundations of our nation.”
Credibility
Ratu Tevita questioned the inclusion of Sayed-Khaiyum.
He said Sayed-Khaiyum was at the forefront as the lead on Fiji’s economy for over 10 years during the FijiFirst administration and was not fit to be lecturing the country on what to do to fix the economy.
“We are still digging ourselves out of a flawed constitution forced upon the people against their will, the deliberate dismantling of our indigenous Fijian institutions, the Great Council of Chiefs chief among them, and an economy so badly mismanaged that it has left this country buried under a debt of more than $10 billion,” Ratu Tevita said.
“A debt now carried by every Fijian, and by our children and theirs. To seat the author of our troubles before us as the authority on their cure does not lend this dialogue credibility; it makes a mockery of it.”
He said the organisers owe the nation an explanation on why Sayed-Khaiyum was included at all.
On the other hand, he called for the country to support the work done by the Rabuka government.
He said the coalition inherited disorder it did not create and is working on rectifying the wrongs and building steady steps to bridge the economy.
“It is not without fault – no government is – but it is working, steadily and in good faith, to put our house in order, and it deserves our patience while it does.
“Fiji is in a better place today than it was four years ago. We are freer than we were. We must hold the course and keep building – together, with discipline and with purpose.”
Missing the nation
Ratu Tevita said the absence of the people who matter was a big mistake, and Fiji lost an opportunity to have real discussions on the state of the economy and put in place solutions to drive the economy forward.
He pointed to the number of politicians and government officials who were invited and spoke at the event.
He said a nation is far more than its government and such dialogues should include people in their towns and villages, the faiths they hold, and the institutions that bind them together.
“Leave any of these out, and what remains cannot speak for the whole,” he said.
“With that in mind, consider who filled the room at the Grand Pacific Hotel, and who did not.
“The speakers and panellists were drawn mainly from politicians and government officials. That is not the nation. Where were the people of this land, in whom our shared identity is rooted?
“Where were the leaders of our faith communities, of every creed, who watch over the conscience of the nation? And where, above all, was the ordinary villager, the worker, the small business owners just trying to get by?”
He said these are the heart and soul of this nation and a dialogue that does not seat them cannot claim to speak for them.
“It matters little which officeholders or party figures attended. What matters is that the nation itself was not there.
“A conversation about Fiji’s future, held among the few and over the heads of the many, may fill a hall in Suva; it cannot speak for the country beyond its doors.”
Fijians watching
Ratu Tevita said Fijians are watching and leaders need to be accountable.
People are tired of listening to talks without action, he said.
“True leadership is not measured by a fine speech in Suva. It is measured by what follows when the talking is done. Whether the cost-of-living eases, the sick receive proper care, the young find hope and purpose, our roads carry our people safely, and the foundations of our nation are made sound once more.”
