Union Leaders

Movement "Snowballs" Along

"No Time For Rest"

For Fiji's Credit

Union Leaders

From a Suva Correspondent In the middle of the rara (vil

lage green) of a Fijian village

near Suva, and visible from the Queen’s Road, stands a white monument. It marks the seed bed of a movement which is gather

ing impetus in Fiji and which

could play a tremendous part in the life of an independent Fiji.

THE monument is in the village of Kalokolevu, where the first credit union in the South Pacific began on January 21, 1954.

Two months earlier, a Jesuit priest.

Father Marian Ganey, landed in Fiji after 18 years in British Honduras, bringing the credit union idea with him.

The idea began in Germany in 1848 and spread to the other side of the Atlantic by 1900. Father Ganey made it a success in British Honduras.

The credit union teaches thrift and encourages financial planning. Father Ganey was told that these ideas would find little encouragement among the Fijians.

But the gloomy Jeremiahs were wrong. In 10 years the movement has made giant strides.

Nearly 300 Unions

A map of Fiji on the wall of the Credit Union League HQ at Suva shows the extent of growth of the seed planted at Kalokolevu.

Nearly 300 coloured pins each rep resenting a union are dotted all over the map, the majority edging along the coastal roads of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. Some follow the river valleys up into the hills and into the almost inaccessible heart of Viti Levu.

Father Ganey chose as his right hand man Jone Naisara, who is now the managing director of the Fiji Credit Union League, the parent body of all the credit unions in the Colony, “We have had no time to rest,” says Jone, “because at the moment nearly 200 villages and groups are pressing us for assistance in starting new credit unions.”

The movement has 32,407 mem bers, mostly Fijians, and between them

they have savings amounting to £452,849.

Most of the money is invested in personal loans to the members, who, over the past 10 years, have borrowed the amazing sum of £2,016,420 — usually for personal items, for sew ing machines, for outboard motors, building materials, clothing, luxury items such as radios and even tape recorders, all bought without recourse to grasping moneylenders.

Outstanding loans at present total £437,386. Their repayment is sure.

Interest is a mere 1 per cent, per month on a reducing balance. Mem bers make contributions, each week if possible, and their contributions buy shares which, if the credit union makes a profit—as almost all do— collect interest at the year’s end.

A member’s borrowing does not affect his share capital which remains to his credit, to be offset only if he

defaults. In addition there is loan protection insurance which “guarani tees” the union against a defaulter and which repays a loan in the evem of a borrower’s death or disability.

And that is not all. If a membe: dies, his savings go to his dependants the union adding £1 for £l—sureh a system unheard of in the Island! before.

Between them, the unions hav» built their neat permanent headl quarters at Suva with a paid staff pre sided over by Jone, with Father Ganet supervising the whole operation.

Each week from headquarters, th» league s Land-Rover sets out to call at villages along the King’s ano Queens Roads, and up the Sigatob Valley, collecting the savings of eacll credit union for deposit in the banl at Suva.

On horseback and by raft, othei members bring savings from remote villages to the larger centres foi handing over to the parent body.

The biggest credit union in th« Colony is at the gold-mining centre of Vatukoula, where seven credi unions recently amalgamated into one, giving 1,300 members.

Although the Fijians, with theii traditions of communalism, have taken to the credit union idea witl alacrity, the movement is making only cT^ P i° Br^ s amon S Indians.

But Father Ganey says there are pos-i them ° f awakening interes t among

Teacher's Role

Most of the unions are Fijian village affairs, but others, such as the Sacred Heart, the PWD, the City Council employees’ and Burns Philp credit unions are multiracial.

The Fi ij League is affiliated to CUNA, the Credit Union Inter national, which has its headquarter; at Madison, Wisconsin, USA.

The league, a benevolent advisory body, is assuming the role of teacher Attempts are being made to establish a training centre at Suva to train credit union leaders in the manage-; ment of unions and teach the philosophy of credit union work.

Already the league has produced a propaganda film in technicolor" which has gone the rounds in Fiji and overseas.

Father Ganey says: “The credit! union is a way of teaching a group of people to help themselves and help each other by practising thrift, pro-i viding themselves with the means of borrowing money at low interest rates and learning th e management of money.”

And there could lie one of the pathsj to progress for the people of Fijii