FLP Leader Mahendra Chaudhry [left] and Dialogue Fiji Executive Director Nilesh Lal

The Fiji Labour Party and Dialogue Fiji have expressed disappointment with the Prime Minister’s move to appoint new ministers and assistant ministers.

FLP Leader Mahendra Chaudhry in a statement said that Prime Minister’s primary consideration was to secure his own delicate position by bolstering his support, and secondly, lighten his own work load at the expense of the taxpayer.

He claims that some People’s Alliance insiders told him that this is an interim measure by the PM to give him room to make more substantive changes in the makeup of his Cabinet in the next few months as the election nears.

Meanwhile, Dialogue Fiji also raised concerns regarding Prime Minister’s decision to expand the Cabinet size.

Dialogue Fiji Executive Director Nilesh Lal says never before in Fiji’s history has such a high proportion of MPs been Ministers.

He says such a bloated Cabinet is neither justified by the size of Fiji’s population nor the size of its legislature.

Lal says a more appropriate Cabinet size for Fiji would be 12 to 15 Ministers.

He adds that the Cabinet expansion comes on the heels of significant salary increases that the MPs approved for themselves last year, where each Minister now earns a minimum of $200,000 annually and each Assistant Minister earns $120,000.

Lal says these salary hikes, combined with the expanded size of the Cabinet, have created the biggest ministerial salary bill in Fiji’s history.

The Executive Director says what makes it difficult to accept is that this is happening at a time when ordinary Fijians have been subject to severe austerity measures, including increase in VAT by 6 percent.

However, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka in a press conference this afternoon has said that the appointment of the new ministers and assistant ministers is going to be funded from the current 2024/2025 budget.

He has clarified that the appointment of new Ministers and Assistant Ministers is not going to be a burden on the taxpayers.