The Attorney-General and Acting Prime Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has called for members of the public to make good use of national consultations on the 2016 National Budget.

He made the call during the public consultation at the Lautoka Sugar City Mall yesterday.

“As you know this is for the first time in Fijian history that we are having such public consultations where people have the ability to come and make oral submissions,” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said.

“You know we have advertised calling for people to submit oral, written or email. We are having public consultations in Suva, Lautoka and Labasa.”

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said the question was not on meeting the Government’s expectations but whether the budget would meet the expectations of the Fijian people.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said more consultations were important for the running of the nation.

The final national budget consultation will be held in Labasa next Saturday.

Interesting submissions

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum added there were also strong and interesting submissions from organisations like the Sunshine Special School.

“Whilst we were giving, for example, $125 per child for primary school, some submissions we received were that we had to distinguish them from mainstream schools because funding for special schools was more than main= stream schools. These were interesting submissions we have to cater for in the budget.”

Lautoka submissions

About 20 people gave their submissions for the 2016 national budget consultation at the Lautoka Sugar City Mall.

Akura Limited managing director Bill Brook said funds should be allocated to develop on-shore oil exploration.

“Exploration work in Fiji since 2010 has developed the concept of Fiji, as on shore oil producer, into a likely and achievable reality,” Mr Brook said.

He said if the Government was committed to this venture then the majority of the problems faced by Fiji would be solved.

Empower Pacific representative Mark Fitten said more funding could be directed to non-government organisations.

“We provide counselling and we need this to reach out to the community as the best outcome but we need adequate funding,” he said.

“If customs duty charged on products that are used in our scope of work could be waived. We are providing services and removing such duty and other taxes on the product can free up income for free services.”

Lautoka Ratepayers Association president Maude Elbourne proposed more veterinarian services in the country.

She also said measures were needed to be taken to deal with the growing problem of stray dogs.

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