A leading economist believes that the current poor state of the economy is because of lack of good leadership to take the country in the right direction.
Dr Mahendra Reddy, while strongly denouncing claims by the interim Finance Minister that the country is on the mend, said most pacific islands countries economy are not doing well because there is a leadership problem.
"We know what we need to do but unfortunately for various reasons we are not able to do those things. If you look, throughout the Pacific Region, the core cause of social and economic hardship is leadership. All over the Pacific Region, it’s not only in Fiji, all of the social and economic problems that people are facing is derived out of the quality of leadership that we have. Unless and until we resolve that issue of leadership, we will not be able to prosper in terms of those social and economic indicators." Dr. Mahendra Reddy.
Reddy said Fiji's economy has faced a lot of uncertainty from January which in turn has contributed a lot to investors losing confidence.
This comes after interim Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry that the economy is on the right track and there are positive indicators that the economy is definitely on the mend in the short span of 15-18 months, compared to the highly precarious state it was in when they took over from the Qarase led SDL government.
According to Chaudhry, Fiji's Foreign reserves have stabilized, the Government's debt levels have declined to 47% compared to the 52% under the SDL led Government, the Budget deficit has been contained to less than 2% from 5% of the Gross Domestic Product, and the interests rates have also declined from 14-15% right down to 7%.
