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More Indo Fijians are living below the poverty line (37 per cent) compared to Fijians (34 per cent).
This was one of the findings (incidence of poverty) highlighted in the book, the Quantitative Analysis of Poverty in Fiji written by University of the South Pacific (USP) academic, Professor Wadan Narsey
USP vice Chancellor Professor Rajesh Chandra launched the book today at the USP.
Speaking at the launching Dr Narsey highlighted that knowing the difference between “incidence of poverty” and “poverty gap” was vital for understanding Fiji’s lack of genuine political dialogue on poverty.
He said Indo-Fijian political parties would like to use this result while major Fijian political parties chose to ignore it.
“But what share of poverty alleviation resources should the two groups get, based on ‘need’ alone,” he asked.
“For example, what would each group get if taxpayers were to give each “poor” household just enough in cash or subsidised services to just bring them up the poverty line values?
“That depends not just how far the households are below the poverty line but also how many people there are below the poverty line.
“It depends very strongly on the number of people who are poor.”
Dr Narsey also noted in his book that even though a higher percentage of Indo-Fijians were poor (compared to Fijians) population wise, there were more poor Fijians than poor Indo-Fijians.
So the ethnic share of the ‘poverty gap’ using differentiated basic need poverty line (BNPL) values is as follows: Fijians 49 per cent and Indo Fijians 47 per cent.
According to Dr Narsey, “Indo-Fijian political parties ignore this result, while Fijian political parties use it.”
Dr Narsey said that an affirmative action policy on poverty alleviation based purely on need (not on ethnicity) would still give a higher proportion of the resources to indigenous Fijians.
This was noted in the 2007 census results that showed Fijians getting 57 per cent share (and share will keep on rising over time) while Indo Fijians got 37 per cent (share is falling with emigration and lower birth rate).
“Why are our political leaders blind to the poverty needs of different races,” he asked.
The professor also highlighted other points outlined in his book.
For instance, he pointed out that in Chapter 8 of the book with its profile of “the conditions of life”, of the poorest 30 per cent shows clearly that Rural Fijians are far more deprived than other groups in terms of housing, transport, electricity, water, toilets, cooking apparatus, television/videos and telecommunications.
“Everything except food,” Dr Narsey added.
On the other hand, when it comes to access to land, which is most fundamental in reflecting “capacity of rural households” to ensure food security and income earning capacity, rural Indo-Fijians are far more deprived and that is even indicated by the incomes data.
However, Dr Narsey pointed out that many Fijians who allegedly “own mataqali land”, cannot get security of tenure even on “their own” land and are in no position to invest in their agricultural capacity.
He said a lot of Fijians now prefer to buy freehold land as well.
Dr Narsey acknowledged the Fiji Islands Bureau of Statistics (among others) for allowing the full use of the results of the National Household and Income Expenditure Survey (HIES) of 2002-’03 as well as other statistics for his book.
