Parliamentary

Fiji

Record

production

Fiji’s crucial sugar harvest has got off to a smooth start with all four sugar mills crushing as planned. The Fiji Sugar Corporation is predicting a record sugar production of 384,000 tonnes from 3.4 million tonnes of cane. It’s the first time in several years that the cane harvest has begun without threats of a boycott or strike. Sugar has been Fiji’s main export earner for most of this century but tourism has overtaken it in the last couple of years. □ *♦*♦♦**♦♦*♦*

Parliamentary

happenings

The 70-member Fiji House of Representatives sat for the first time on June 29, after the preisdent of the country, Ratu Sir Penania Ganilau, formally opened the session.

Former Health Minister and defeated candidate in the elections, Dr Apenisa Kuruisaqila, was appointed speaker of the house on June 26. □ *** A junior minister in the Fiji government has warned that if non- Christians did not observe and respect Sundays, the Hindu celebration of Diwali and the Muslim’s Prophet Mohammed’s birthday should be scrapped. The two celebrations are marked by public holidays in Fiji.

The Minister of State for Health, Solomone Naivalu, told parliament he also supported amendments to the constitution which would declare Fiji a Christian state. Naivalu said the practice of the indigenous Fijian people’s Christian faith and beliefs would merely become lip-service if they did not observe and protect Sunday and ensure that non-Christians respect that day every week. Naivalu said he was not trying to impose Sunday observance on others but asking others to appreciate, understand and accept Christian values as part of the indigenous system. D *** The Speaker of Fiji’s House of Representatives has rejected questions filed in parliament relating to the office of the country’s two vice-preisdnets. The 14 questions were filed by the Fijian Nationalist United Front (FNUF). FNUF leader Sakeasi Butadroka said he was not satisfied with the speaker s ruling as the questions related to public funds. He wanted to know under what authority public funds were being used to set up an office for one of the vice-presidents, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, who was the country’s former prime minister. Butadroka asked why Mara’s new office was staffed by civil servants and why he had “commandeered” two government vehicles. He also wanted to know when Mara would vacate the official prime minister’s residence to allow the new prime minister, Major-General Sitiveni Rabuka, to move in. D