A superior eBook (2024)

Source: The Fiji Times

Fiji and the world can now access my Volume 1 (The Challenges of Growing the Fiji Economy), 2nd and Revised Edition (date 2024), as an eBook on Amazon Books, costing only $US7 ($F15) (just google "Amazon Books Wadan Narsey". Or follow this link.

https://www.amazon.com/Books-Wadan-Narsey/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AWadan+Narsey

This eBook has many advantages for the buyers, compared with the print version first published in 2017. With more than 150 readings, this revised 2nd edition also has articles written in the last three years, including those just before and after the 2022 elections.

Why superior to the print book?

What Prof Biman Prasad said at my book launch at USP

I was honoured to have Prof Biman Prasad (Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, a Professor of Economics himself and my former colleague from USP) launch my four community education books.

I quote some extracts from his speech:

"No university professor in Fiji's history has contributed so much to public debate as Prof Narsey. Few academic writers have the skill to reduce complicated issues to their essentials and present them in short articles for newspapers, as Prof Narsey has done for decades.

There are many themes in these writings which remind us that Prof Narsey's vision for Fiji was far ahead of its time. For example he has written about industries such as improving markets for agriculture, the SME tourism hotel chain, retirement homes, the outsourcing industry and value adding from timber. These are industries we are pursuing and promoting today.

He advocated for participation by Pacific nations in Super Rugby 20 year ago which is now in full flight with the Drua and Fijian women.

Prof Wadan long ago advocated for increased labour mobility in the Pacific. This too is now happening, with significant increases in remittance income - even if there are new challenges in retaining scarce skills and coping with labour shortages in many areas.

He has long advocated for a united Pacific Community. This is at the top of my agenda also, as we urge visa free travel to Australia and New Zealand as part of greater economic integration with those countries.

Prof Narsey has written widely on entrepreneurship we are keen on fostering, including successful indigenous Fijian businesses.

His books include profiles on successful Fiji entrepreneurs such as the late David Gilmour of Fiji Water, the late Mere Samisoni, Yee Wah Sing, Mark Halabe and the Chauhan family.

But it was not all good news. For years, Prof Narsey has warned governments and policymakers about the dangers of poor-quality public spending and economic management, and Government debt. These warnings were prophetic, and we have been left record levels of Public Debt: GDP ratios by the previous governments."

Yes, the book has good news and bad news about Fiji's economic journey for the last forty years.

Bearing witness to the past

In my preface to the four volumes, I have one short page titled: "To bear witness" which include the lines:

"Bearing witness is difficult in small societies where the powerful ones to be held to account, often know the writer as colleagues, acquaintances, friends or even relatives...... These sometimes painful writings try to "bear witness" and hold to account those in power and authority, without fear or favour, regardless of ethnicity, colour or class. I apologise if I hurt any sensibilities."

So of course, these articles stretching back four decades are a critical record of all governments' economic policy areas (and mistakes) over the past forty years including all the governments Fiji has had: the Mara government, the first Sitiveni Rabuka government, the Mahendra Chaudhry government (for one brief year), the Laisenia Qarase government (six years), the military Voreqe Bainimarama government (8 years), the elected Bainimarama government (8 years), and most recently the Coalition Government (of Mr Rabuka, Prof Prasad and Viliame Gavoka) (one year).

I suggest below how readers can also use the contents of this eBook to judge the performance of the Rabuka Coalition Government over the last one year and for the rest of their term. I even subject my friend the Minister of Finance to honest scrutiny over his 2023-24 budget.

But readers today must not forget the horrendous past and what they owe to brave media such as The Fiji Times, its publishers and its journalists.

Thanking The Fiji Times and Motibhai Patel

It is so easy to forget today in our new era of media freedom, that the The Fiji Times was the only print media that persisted in trying to reveal the truth about the Bainimarama/Sayed-Khaiyum dictatorship, and was punished for doing so by being denied government tax-payer funded ads and police prosecution.

The Fiji Times publishers (like Hank Arts) and editors (like Fred Wesley) were persecuted for doing their duty, facing huge fines and jail terms on trumped up charges, while one shareholder was imprisoned on minor charges and hounded out of the country.

The other unnamed print media (which is very aggressive today now that others won the battles for media freedom) was given preferential access to government ads while its owners received other financial benefits, in return for being a pure propaganda outlet for the Bainimarama government.

More than 90 per cent of my readings in all four volumes have been printed by The Fiji Times, and I am grateful to owners Motibhai Patel for persisting with my articles during the Bainimarama dictatorship and afterwards.

The Bainimarama dictatorship evils

Today, with some dis-satisfaction with the Rabuka/Prasad/Gavoka Coalition Government, there are some anonymous voices on social media agitating for a return to the Old Order, completely forgetting its horrendous excesses.

Many readings in this eBook remind readers not to forget these horrendous excesses whose ill effects live on today and will be with us for many years to come.

For instance, the words "Cens" in the titles in the contents list in every section, especially between 2009 and 2014, are evidence of the massive attack on media freedom during the height of the Bainimarama/Sayed-Khaiyum excesses.

The titles themselves indicate clearly all the important areas in which the public were denied access to the truth about the massive damage that was being done to their well-being.

How quickly have the public forgotten about the sacking of the many civil servants such as government statistician Kemueli Naiqama and Solicitor-General Sharvada Sharma? Or the driving out from USP of critical academics such Prof Wadan Narsey?

What about the gutting of the Public Accounts Committee (and removal of chairman MP Prof Biman Prasad).

What about the suppression of the annual reports of the Auditor General between 2006 and 2014, and the subsequent denial of information on the gross wastage of taxpayer funds which led to the crippling public debt that today is the daily nightmare of the Minister of Finance for many years to come.

There are so many evils of the Bainimarama era that I will also list in my Volumes 2, 3 and 4. But the public must also hold to account the current Coalition Government.

How judge the Coalition Government?

While this Coalition Government has only been in place for a year and a half, there are some indications of the lack of urgency in a number of areas that have been covered by the readings in my Volume 1 eBook (2nd edition).

Over some pet issue, some are asking through the social media "is this Government pretty much the same as the Bainimarama government?"

But I suggest that readers (and even Opposition MPs) can be more specific in their analysis, judgement and calls for accountability of the Coalition Government by taking some guidance from the readings in my eBook Volume 1 and ask (roughly following the contents):

Or is it mostly talk and grand posturing by government ministers, and no action?

I am in the process of also revising and converting into eBooks my Volumes 2, 3 and 4:

There will be other sets of questions relating to the contents of Volumes 2, 3 and 4.