A practical letter about itaukei reform

from w

One of the letters in today’s Fiji Times  - by Timoci Bure, has many sensible ideas in it.

ITaukei reforms

WHEN parliament resumes we hope that the incoming government will carry out a massive reform to the colonial made iTaukei administration system.  We need to remove the fear of utilising our native land that has been given to us from God to be used and not to be preserved. Remember the story about talents in the Bible.

Many times we claim that we serve a powerful God but we lack the courage to utilise god-given resources.

Village life badly needs restructuring and chiefly institutions need to receive government attention with job descriptions and allowances. Housing schemes need to be accessible to village dwellers and native landowners should be given liberty to decide how they wish to utilise land. More iTaukei landowners are flooding squatter settlements while their land is idle for decades. Some have left their villages to do canecutting contracts.

Traditional systems of conducting functions such as weddings and funerals need to be restructured so as to be simple, save money and time. Some of these systems have ruined our effort of improving living standard and coming out of the poverty cycle that we have inherited from our ancestors. So many young iTaukei couples are not able to have legal marriages because customs and traditions norms are preventing them from doing so. So many iTaukei are not attending funerals of their relations because the customs and traditions expectations are preventing them from doing so.

Village life needs to be programmed and the role of village elders need to be strengthened as well as kinship.

These are the genuine iTaukei challenges waiting for the very person who will lead this country after the September election.

He needs to be a reformist, a strong leader and an agent for change.

TIMOCI BURE
Taveuni