Government has ensured that every Fijian has access to the latest technology and internet. Minister for Communications Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said this was part of Government’s strategy to ensure that no Fijian was left behind in terms of development.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum was speaking during an announcement in Suva yesterday where Fijians can now access radio stations on the Walesi platform.

Walesi now has 100 per cent coverage of Fiji in television. Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said: “In order to keep up to date with the latest technologies, individual companies will have to keep investing in large amounts of capital.”

“If they do not do that then obviously they will be left behind and the country or consumers will be left out.”

“But it is also very difficult for them to do it because we have a very small basket base.”

“Commercial companies whether its television or radio do need their advertising dollars in order to make those levels of investment.”

“As a Government, we are very keen to ensure that every Fijian has access to the latest technologies.

“I remember when we started to invest in Walesi we received a lot of criticism.”

“There were a lot who could not look into the future, nor could they understand what we were trying to do because they failed to read up as to what was the rationale behind it,” he said.

3rd Cheapest In The World

But Government’s continued efforts was vindicated last year when a United Kingdom-based telecommunications company ranked Fiji as the third cheapest internet service provider in the world.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said Government had ensured all schools and nursing stations in the rural areas have access to internet services.

“What is critically important for us also is that the schools that had communities living around it, we in fact Wi-Fi the school compound. Villagers can come to the school compound and connect to Viber or WhatsApp.”

“The nursing stations have also been connected so doctors and nurses are able to connect to the bigger hospitals.”

“Maybe something complicated, they can actually take the camera to show what the patient’s condition is like, show the actual wound or what have you, so they can get information.

Meanwhile, Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said with the increase in development happening in the North, he believed that Vanua Levu was ripe also for business process outsourcing. 3000 new jobs were created in this sector in the last two years.

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