Twenty one employees of Fiji Rice Limited couldn’t contain their excitement after receiving a pay increment announcement from Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khayium in Labasa on Friday.

Daven Raj, 42, of Malawai, in Macuata Province who has been working for 10 years for the company said it was a timely increment.

“I have been working at Fiji Rice Limited mill in Dreketi for more than 10 years as a factory worker,” Mr Raj said.

“Thank you Bainimarama Government, Mr Sayed-Khaiyum and Fiji Rice Limited.

“Our lives, including other employees especially, those who are in Dreketi will be improved.”

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said employees received an average of five per cent pay increase.

“This is the second pay rise within a span of three years.The first pay rise, the employees received about ten per cent increase,” he said.

“Government is quite keen to ensure that all employees in Fiji get the salary paid right.

So it also includes state owned enterprises.

There were numerous challenges highlighted by the Fiji Rice Limited chairperson Raj Sharma.

One of them was changing the brand name from Rewa Rice to Fiji Rice as part of the modernisation process.

The reason why the company changed the name was because it is owned by the Government.

“We would like to thank all the staff, as we know some of them have been working for long,” Mr Sharma said.

“Some have been on salary, on hourly rates and were not necessarily attractive.

“So some of them will be getting slightly higher depending on what scale they are on.

“So the idea is to be able to pay people the market rate, what is available in the market, what is paid in the market and other organisations and to be able to be comparable to that. If we look after our staff and provide the right environment and pay them right then people will feel motivated to work and they want to progress.”

Meanwhile, Mr Sharma said he was very happy.

“The pay increment came after they have received an increase in production and noted more profit this year,” Mr Sharma said.

“I can still remember in 2011 we had faced huge loses where we were operating for two to three days and some workers were laid off.

“Over the years we have been working very hard.

“This year, the mill is operating seven days and sometimes from 7:30am to 10pm in the night during peak hours. We are very happy to see lot of improvements.”

Edited by Mohammed Ali
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