Ousted Opposition Leader Mick Beddoes stressed that Interim Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry should be sacked over the imposition of a new duty on bottled water products.
Speaking to Fijivillage from New Zealand, Beddoes said the move by Chaudhry has put hundreds of workers’ jobs and livelihoods at risk.
"This is not the first time where we’ve had a situation where the Minister for Finance has basically mishandled the matter," Beddoes said. "The first instance was the matter of stopping the export of Fiji water. Then we’ve recently had the two-or-three-hour bus strike that Mr Chaudhry was involved with.
"And that led to disruption to thousands of citizens before the Prime Minister had to intervene. Now we have the arbitrary imposition of taxes on these organizations forcing them to stop productions and putting 750 people’s jobs at risk."
When questioned about Chaudhry's comments that it is time to charge bottling companies for using Fiji's mineral water resource since most have been exempted from paying duty, he said it is not a good enough excuse.
"Arrangements that Fiji Water had with the government of the day at the time they established their operation obviously may have involved some incentives like we do with everybody else that invests in this country. So I would not be surprised if there is some element of investment," he said.
Beddoes said these bottling companies took a risk with a new product.
"Of course, the rest is taking the risk nobody did bottled water before. Nobody thought Fiji Water would sell. We never considered ourselves buying bottled water so the investor took all the risk, made the investment, in exchange – I would imagine – the government of the day gave them some incentives to encourage them to do so," he said.
Beddoes added the interim government has got to stop coming up with heavy handed approaches as a means of solving issues with organizations.
Meanwhile, the Interim Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry earlier said it is about time that water bottling companies pay duty for using Fiji's mineral water resource as they have been exempted from paying duty over the past years and they should take some personal responsibility to start paying the 20 cents per litre export duty and 20 cents per litre excise duty on bottled water sold locally.
He said cabinet’s decision to impose the duty stands from the 1st of this month and the companies should get ready to pay.
"They are not paying any duty, any extra, on water that is extracted. This tax is not unusual – in many countries of the world you have a resource tax which is paid by people who exploit natural resources of a country for commercial gain. In Fiji itself, you will see, countries that are engaged in gold mining they pay royalties for extracting that resource and those who do logging they pay royalty on logging, those who extract sand and metal they pay royalty on that."
The interim government has imposed a 20 cents per litre export duty on all the mineral water exports and a 20 cents per litre excise duty on mineral water sold locally. Industry spokesperson Jay Dayal said industry reps had met with interim Finance minister Mahendra Chaudhry, however no resolutions were reached and individual water bottling companies are making submissions on demands.
