Fiji: Government aware of sugar industry problems

Government is aware of the problem the sugar industry is facing and is doing all it can to resolve the issues says Commissioner Western Commander Joeli Cawaki.

Cawaki says the Prime Minister and Minister for Sugar Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama held a consultation last week on the poor performance of the sugar mills this season.

He says they met to discuss how the FSC can be made sufficient as possible to be able to service the community.

“We have some message now according to the consultation or the discussion that we had with the Prime Minister on Friday and we will be implementing some of that. The National Task Force on Sugar have also met and they will be implementing their recommendations on how we can make FSC sufficient as possible to be able to service our community, but whilst in the Western division everything revolves around sugar from Sigatoka to Rakiraki.”

Commander Cawaki says without sugar the economy will go down.

“Even though some people are saying that tourism is thriving in the Western division but the unfortunate thing about tourism is only five percent of the dollar from the tourist comes back to the country, 95 percent is retained overseas because these are the business of foreign investors that are here in the Western division.”

source: radiofiji