Yuku free message boards

he knows that if this thing happens here, it will happen in Samoa not shortly thereafter. the Matai will soon be thinking about the commoner Samoans enfranchisement and right to parliamentary participation - and why not ?

Samoans are a very creative and talented people - you only have to look at the art and sports and basically everythother scene in Auckland and Wellington and now in Sydney. if that creativity is unleashed, Samoa will be a powerhouse of the Pacific - the same goes for all the other Pacific island nations - Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia.

there is a potential of creativity and dynamism thats untapped over here - largely regimented and regulated by the systems of traditional rule.

those structures of traditional governance will have to come down because for the region to move forward, everyone whether chief or commoner, indigenous or not, male or female has to have equal opportunity for participation in that process where that creativity and dynamism is allowed to be realised to its fullest potential.

its already happening in Tonga - and the Tui Tonga is encouraging it - and that is groundbreaking in a society as stratified and traditional as Tonga.

if its allowed to grow under the right positive conditions it will be a huge benefit for the countries and the region as a whole.

personally i think Sada Reddy should stay in charge of the RBF for as long as he needs to implement his plans - this guy is the real deal. for too long he has been the brains behind the RBF but kept out of leadership because of his race - now he is where he deserves to be - at the helm - and already he is making significant and very solid decisions.

Microfinancing from the banks is one of the new things he has now put in - this thing had been discussed for donkeys years over here - way back in the 1980's they were talking about it but noone had the dynamism to actually implement it - Reddy has now lain out the guidelines for it.

there's a lot of talk about arable lands out in the rural areas and agriculture and all the rest of it - BUT the financing at that Micro level is non existent. thats been the key to opening up the riral sectlor and allowing private enterprise to move that process - in the past its always been "government driven" i.e through FDB loans and the like - but with the commercial banks making it a private sector based approach that is going to unleash that whole potential just lying in waste in the rural areas.

what we need to do now is to move on the land use policies - upgrading them and bringing them into tune this new dynamic - microfinancing will have to go together with a dynamic agricultural department (advise and technical support) plus land access - i.e new or upgraded modalities on land tenure - native land owners being allowed to use their lands under reviewed arrangements so as to access and secure capital and the like.

in Asia, this is what they have used to drive their agricultural sector - in India with banks like Baroda, HSBC - and across whole swathes of Asia, Thailand, Malaysia, Phillipines etc etc etc etc where they have agrarian rural sectors and lots of land is producing at efficiencies that are supported by their microficancing setups - driven by their Central banks.

already Reddy's 20% cut on the dollar is showing results - guys like Fiji Fish are now rehiring labor they laid off permanently in 2007 - and as the peak period comes around (its off right now for many sectors - this is the normal trend where exporters lay off people for two to three months every year to account for the summer / autumn/ winter variations in the region - the pick up occurs around June/July and runs through to the following April) things are going to stabalise very quickly - it already is.

the sabotage has ended gdev - there's a red pen there - anybody not playing to the song book gets his name run through with a red pen and gets his/her "go home letter" - its that simple gdev. no more messing about - in government, its not just the black book - its now the red pen.

the rules are clear - you implement the processes with due diligence and efficienctly and transparently do your work. if you don't, you go home. its simple.

those who discharge their duties diligently and faithfully get promoted and rewarded - those who sabotage the system and neglect their duties get sacked.

that go home red pen is also just hovering over the Aussie and Kiwi embassies right now - one small slip and they will be closed down and the Forum follows them.

they can complain as much as they want at home - but its not going to make a difference.

the ban on inciteful media reporting is here to stay - like they have in Singapore. what will now haoppen is there will be STRICTER controls on the media and on political discussions - just like they have in Singapore.

Baroda is now implementing these policies here - they've transplanted the same templates from India.

the Aussie banks will also implement these new policies - it is mandatory. if they fail to implement it, then they will have to subsidise government through their pockets for failing to do so - not only through taxes but additional costings for failing to do it - costings that will run into the millions out of their declared gross earnings. thats coming - so either they allow those efficiencies to take place and glean greater profits out of them, or they stifle it and get smaller or prossibly no profits, because a large chunk of their gross earnings which the government will take out of them to use to subsidise for these programs.

this is not wishful thinking gdev - so where's your millitary intervention ? the Constitution was abrogated there weeks ago - and next week the Judges are going to be announced for the High Court......where's your millitary intervention ? you said abrogating the Constitution was wishful thinking, you said sacking Narube was wishful thinking, you said Fiji surviving past December 2007 was wishful thinking, you said this and that.....the only wishful thinking here is yours gdev......none of it has come to fruition and none of it will.

all Fiji wants is a fair go - fair dinkum. thats all Fiji wants.

the Aussie banks will have two choices - either they set up micro financing facilities within their banks and fund those initiatives under RBF policies OR they get to pay a subsidy to the government in lieu of implementing that policy - thats how its done in Asia - so either they put 3 million into that thing via set up and get profits off that 3.5 to 4 million OR they pay 3.5 to 4 million per annum straight off the bat to the Government who put it into the microfinancing set up in the FDB for the policy implementation - so if the three Aussie banks say we can't do it - no problem - they pay the subsidy of 4 million each - and thats 12 million per annum from the three banks straight into the micro financing set up per annum - over ten years thats 120 million into the agricultural sector - my guess is that they will want to keep that money in house and roll it over and make commercial profit off it - whatever, as long as the program is implemented efficiently and transparently thats what the whole objective is.

Canberra and Wellington are still living in the past - thirty years ago. their foreign policy with respect to the South Pacific is still in the stone age.

it is not a zero sum game - Canberra and Wellington operate under the misguided and unfounded notion that it is a zero sum game.

they need to lift their game - there is room for everybody in the South Pacific - the Chinese and Indians and Malaysians and Singaporeans and anybody else for that matter has just as equal right as anybody else to do business here.

if Canberra and Wellington respect those boundries there will be enough of a cake for everybody to have a win win outcome. they both have nothing to fear from the new direction that Fiji is taking - its for the better - and they have to understand thatthe south pacific is not their personal property or fiefdom.

we have no choice but to create an intergrated and structured set up over here - because otherwise it will end by like Qarase's failed fiasco's of the 1980's where he gave out millions for boat engines and small dingy's and taxi's and never got a cent in return (FDB had to write it off) and the people who took the loans ended up in bankruptcy without ever learning anything about proper business fundamentals or adding anything to the countries GDP.

what the state has to do is identify sectors of the economy that will present sustainable outcomes - and then provide the technical expertise to support that process - with agriculture you have cocoa farming, bannana farming, fish farming, vegetables and fruits farming etc etc etc.....but these things need to be driven - and the way to do that is to get the agricultural department to create their back up and support systems that will (a) provide the technical back up to the farmers (b) provide the yardsticks for performance; and (c) ensure that the farms perform - the banks come in as financiers to that process - financing the farmers - but they cannot be throwing away their money - they MUST get return on their money, which is why it is VERY IMPORTANT that the state provide the technical backup and resources to UPSKILL the farmers and get them to run their farms at optimum levels providing good efficient outputs.

it has to be run as a commercial enterprise - driven by the government setting those platforms - and implemented by the agricultural departments etc etc who work as teh technical support people driving that process at ground level - but it MUST BE DRIVEN - impetus must be given to that process by the State.

the hotels are complaining about consistency of supply - there are many variables involved there - either the farmers have insufficient cash to maintain that consistent supply (i.e they move around with their crops to suit the seasonal demands) or they simply don't have the level of technical expertise required to produce at those optimum levels - and this is where that structured and intergrated approach will come in - the financiers, the state and the farmers work synergistically to produce those outcomes - it can be done, and in this instance State intervention is necessary to make it happen.

like the guys in Canberra you still have your head stuck in the 1970's.

the intergrated approach i am talking about is similar to what the Aussies are implementing with CSIRO (their reasearch institutes) and their banks working with the farms - the same goes on in NZ. that dairy industry grew to where it is today because of direct government intervention into that process - and it still is - their whole agricultural set up is geared towards maximising efficiencies and outputs.

the difference however is that the Aussies and Kiwi's will not share that experience with us - because its not in their interest to help us in these areas.

as you pointed out they would rather "help" us with sewing machines for the local soqosoqo vakamarama - it suits their geopolitical agenda - when you export $10 million dollars worth of milk to Fiji a month its commercial sense not to help Fiji get that viability in milk production because you then lose $120 million a year.

microfinancing is only a part of that equation - the other part is identifying value producing sectors that will drive that process and raising the GDP - if its in IT, in agriculture, in the creative arts, whatever......it must be sustainable and adept to variations in international conditions - nd that means contsnat upskilling and upgrading - driven from the front by the State implemented policies directed at achieving those outcomes.

what happened over here in the 1970's wasn't a structured approach - it was ad hoc - thats why the Dairy farms never progressed beyond the ad hoc techniques they were using in the 60's - the FDB was set up with the misguided notion that if you throw money at the issue it would solve itself - but thats not true - you also need Research and development and you need technical input and constant upskilling and government set paramaters for output and efficiencies in order to keep abreast - it has to be structured - you cannot use a 1970's typewriter and hope to produce at the same level of efficiency and output as a Dell laptop does in 2009 - its simply worlds apart.

thats why they ended exporting bannana's in the 1960's because of some compliance issues and despite all the money pumped into the thing couldn't fix the issues in the 1970's - and today it remains unfixed whilst we have huge markets in this region for banana which the Brazilians and Peruvians and Chileans are filling from 10,000 miles away.

this is why Joketani Cokanasiga needs to get on the horse and start moving - he is now umder the spotlight - and his guys in that Ministry need to shake it up - because if they can't do the job then they should move out and be replaced by agricultural and fisheries experts who can practically implement these things.

and before you go off on your this regime Marxist this and that.....this is the way it works - you perform you stay, you don't perform you go. simple. they do it in Washington, they do it in London, they do it in Paris, they do it in Moscow, they do it in Beijing, they do it in Canberra, they do it in Wellington.....so why not here ? hiring and firing based on performance.

don't worry gdev - these outputs are being measured - because performance speaks - if the guys in the Agriculture ministry tasked with driving that process can't do it, then they will be replaced by people who can do it - and there's expertise being offered by the Chinese, Indians and even Taiwanese - who have a proven track record of achieving these things in their home states.

these objectives will be attained.

this is why it has to be structured - what that means is that the whole machinery of government focussed on the rural sectors i.e the District offices, the agricultural sector officers and the forestry guys and medical guys must work together -what this means is that say you have the Navua District office, you also need an agricultural team there who are doing two things (a) technical assitance to the area (b) inventory work - i.e identifying land and land use possibilites and making reccomendations - then you need the Medical officer there working synergistically with the District officer.

the District officer over there works with these agricultural sector guys to then formulate plans for that district PLUS they work out the logistical requirtements and costings for those plans which will then be used as the basis for government directed initiatives to that particular district - from technical assistance to roads to water to everything - what this means is that these guys i.e the District officer and the agricultural teams should have land use economists, valuers, and agriculturalists - this is very important - this is why we need to upskill our guys - the District officer should work as government administration, not just the desk clerks they have been reduced to - this process of DEVOLUTION needs to be done now - and thats why he/she needs to have that firm base in land economics and public administration because his role is not only going to be for the agricultural and commercial sector of that district - he is also going to be handling its funding and medical facilities and all the rest of it - he basically becomes a District Administrator ala something like a Governer.

thats what one stop shop comes down to - this is why you have towns like Singatoka, Nadarivatu, Korovou, Navua, Nabouwalu, Somossomo, Rakiraki etc etc etc - these are meant to be bases for those disctrict administrations to operate from - and then cover their sectors in terms of service delivery.

this is the big picture - this is how the network has to be integrated right from the base and upwards - and at every stage there are targetted performance indicators - KPI's set for performance achievement measures. thats why we need a structured process - it MUST be structured.