Amongst the hundreds of youths that turned up for the Lynda League Volleyball tournament in Tuirara, Nasinu, I met a shy teenager I will call ‘Mere’.
With dark curly hair and complexion, the first thing I noticed about her was her dimpled smile. I asked her what team she was playing on and she shyly replied that she was just there to watch the games.
After urging her on to play, she weakly said that she had no energy and probably wouldn’t be able to hit the ball. I jokingly asked if she was weak, it was because she didn’t have any breakfast. She looked nervously at her feet and didn’t say anything.
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I sat beside her and asked her to share her story. She was born in Wakanisila, a short distance from where I myself had grown up. Her family, like a lot of us, had moved from the islands and after asking permission from the liuliu ni yavusa, was allocated a small piece of land to build their tin shack.
Her father had passed away and her mother worked at a checkout counter for a large supermarket to provide for her and two younger siblings. I asked her where she was studying and she sheepishly replied that she wasn’t.
Why aren’t you taking advantage of the free tuition and free bus fare, I asked.
“I can’t afford to. I had to drop out of school to help with our finances.”
She said medication and food were her biggest expenses and that they survived mainly on noodles and tin fish.
Mere said that she worked at a popular cafe in Suva where she was paid $2.68/hr and after working eight hours a day, five days a week, her weekly take home pay (after deductions) was about $100.
I asked her if she received any form of support from relatives and she replied that her church group occasionally visited with a bag of groceries.
What struck me the most about this was the look of embarrassment that overcame her as she told me. It was as if she was ashamed for being poor.
But she shouldn’t be ashamed for dropping out of school to help her family. She shouldn’t be ashamed for accepting groceries from concerned church members. She shouldn’t be ashamed that she sometimes misses meals and goes hungry after working long hours.
It’s not shame, but anger we must feel.
Anger that this Government has refused to increase the minimum wage to $4 an hour in the latest budget announced a week ago.
Many internationally recognised studies have shown that a key to fighting poverty is increasing the minimum wage in line with the cost of living.
A wage of $4 an hour is barely enough for a family to live on, but it’s a start towards human decency. Subsidies and tax incentives can help small businesses to pay these wage rates.
$4 an hour wasn’t just pulled out of a hat. The Fiji Trade Union Congress has met extensively with stakeholders (Employers) and after much consultation have arrived at this amount.
For families and businesses that are earning above $30,000, the amount of taxes being charged are astronomical. New taxes seem to magically appear every time I look at a receipt.
Increasing national debt is leading to increased taxes which is making poor people poorer. Billions in taxpayer dollars should not be wasted on handouts and extravagant projects that are a direct cause of this.
This Government has proudly rolled out its Homes-Care, Farms-Care, eTransport-Care, Sugarcane-Care and other ‘cares’ at the cost of higher debt and tax rates, but what is becoming increasingly clear is that this Government doesn’t care!
It doesn’t care about the poor families of Fiji.
This is not only unsustainable, but unacceptable.
The anger at the injustice done to half our population that live below or on the poverty line, like Mere, is the reason why I continue to fight.
Gandhi once said that poverty is the worst form of violence. Poverty discriminates and speaking from personal experience, ‘poverty sucks!’
The next time you go shopping, take a closer look at the receipt and realise that all those taxes printed at the bottom are paying for the millions in handouts and ‘freebies’.
If this angers you, register to vote and let’s do something about it.
Feedback: jyotip@fijisun.com.fj
