Half-way mark

Floyd Robinson, Nasinu

June has arrived again, reaching the half-way mark of 2018. It seems like New Year’s wishes were only days ago. Like they say ‘time flies’.

This is a critical part of the year as the next six months will fly by on a faster note. The demands and commitments at the work place won’t get any better as we approach the busiest part of the year.

On a personal level, personal and family bills are also known to increase. The next thing we know, the end of 2018 will be fast approaching as many get into the celebra­tion and holiday mode.

Meanwhile, those born in June are known to be very active babies and full of energy. Enjoy June while it’s around, but take some time to reflect on personal com­mitments and goals.

Driver’s attitude

Dhirendra Prasad, Lautoka

The attitude of our drivers is the worst in this era of good education and technol­ogy. It seems to me that most of the drivers are always in a hurry. A slight delay could threaten their lives it seems through their attitude and speed.

They don’t realise that with one slight mistake they will cease to remain a living thing in this world.

Taxi drivers think that they own the roads in Fiji. They can stop anywhere, overtake anywhere, make a U-turn any­where, park anywhere and drive too fast or too slow anywhere on our roads.

There are some fierce looking ones who show their anger on the roads by a show of aggressive behaviour through speed­ing and dangerous driving. They would be very harsh through their words and ges­tures to the other drivers.

To add to this, they would act as if they are better than Land Transport Authority officers once caught in an accident. They would try their level best to implicate the other driver at any cost with the furthest of the lies in existence.

The attitude of drivers everywhere is be­coming a challenge.

Can we have a Driver’s Day in Fiji where­by all the drivers get certified that they have understood the use of our roads genuinely?

I leave the other logistics to the relevant authorities for consideration. I can assist if required. But please work out a solution to first change the attitude of our people especially on our roads to begin with.

Pocket meetings

Amenatave Yaconisau, Delainavesi, Lami

The article in this newspaper (Fiji Sun 31/5) about rallies reveals pocket meet­ings by the Opposition that seems to be a propaganda and mobilisation for support­ers.

These pocket meetings was a device used by social democrats to create a sense of power amongst ‘supporters’.

The most famous one was Adolf Hitler who utilised it very well.

Someone help!

Pigeon Act

Satish Nakched , Suva

It was noted with great surprise that the Minister for Agriculture, Rural and Mari­time Development has declared that the pigeon shooting season has commenced from May 26 to June 14 this year and a limit of five birds can be shot by people in the possession of the licence to kill game permit.

The authority to do that is stipulated in the Game and Protection Chapter 170 in the laws of Fiji which was first enacted in 1923 and revised through the Legal Notice in 1984.

This document was made a law after three years when the last of the inden­tured labour ships arrived in Fiji and also after eleven years when the Titanic sank.

This will give a comparison if it is plot­ted in the historic calendar of events in Fiji and to have a feel of how old is the legislation that we still use in the country.

This law is riddled with mistakes, uncer­tainty and very discriminating in nature and was written at the time when men formed the total work force and instead of the word person phases such as he and him are widely used.

When the Pigeon Act was passed most of the areas of Suva was still undeveloped with lush vegetation that support wild life but the over shooting of the endangered species of pigeon was a great concern to the administrators and such protection laws came into effect to protect the extinc­tion of the said birds.

The hilarious part of last week’s news­paper article stated that the area from the Nabukalou Creek in Suva and up to the Vatuwaqa Creek was classified as a reserve and hunting of the pigeons was prohibited in the said zone together with areas around Draunibota Island in Lami. This was valid some 95 years ago, and we still reuse the same instructions without considering the enormous changes that have taken place.

This year the advisory of the pigeon shooting season was published in the newspaper and I believe that there was no attempt by the people who approved the season to read the documents and if they had probably done that than this ancient law would have been picked up with the view to make it current.

Some of our laws are obsolete. I believe that there will be no progress made in the country if we continue to live with these museum piece documents. There are oth­er laws that need to be reviewed immedi­ately such as the Bicycle Act which was enacted in 1939.

I only hope that a mandatory directive will be issued soon to all the ministers to audit the laws that falls under their juris­diction with the intention of making them current and progressive.

Feedback: jyotip@fijisun.com.fj