Fiji Labour Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry

The Easter holidays this year are dampened by the rather sombre message from Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka warning of “difficult times ahead”.

Fiji Labour Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry says Rabuka’s warning comes hard on the heels of the one sounded earlier by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Professor Biman Prasad that “increases in taxation are inevitable”.

Chaudhry says these warnings are clear indications that Fiji is now well and truly in the ‘bail out’ mode of the International Monetary Fund.

The former Prime Minister says the coalition government appears to have succumbed lock, stock and barrel to the IMF prescription for nations in financial and economic distress.

According to Chaudhry, the party has been warning the nation for weeks now that the coalition partners are backing off on their election promises to provide relief to the suffering public.

He says the FLP’s message to the people now is to forget their expectations, watch their spending and prepare for even more difficult times ahead.