Issue No: 684; 18 April 2001

Speaking at the Lau Provincial Council meeting yesterday, Ratu Mara stated that without hardwork and commitment, no blueprint or affirmative action could work. Today's Fiji Sun reports Ratu Mara warning the delegates that the Blueprint when implemented, would not augur well for everyone if sufficient work was not put in.

The newspaper followed up with an editorial hitting hard at the spoon-feeding mentality which the Blueprint generated. It stated: "Any spoon feeding programme aimed at any race - especially the indigenous Fijians - is really not good if that programme encourages getting things for nothing. Unfortunately, the combination of Fijian nepotism and lack of commitment finding its way close to that kind of programme is doomed to bring out a [ethnic] Fijian who is greedy, lazy and weak".

Such programmes, the paper stated, "could encourage a [ethnic] Fijian Mafia, which tries to exploit the system and bring together the surfeit of indigenous criminal elements - the product of some programmes of positive discrimination for [ethnic] Fijians in the past."

The paper also stated that such programs "breed dictators".