Dobs Tukana asks who really plans Fiji. The deeper question: who really learns for Fiji? A National Planning Commission may help, but the larger issue is whether governments learn from experience.
Every government—this one and those that follow—should study reviews, commissions, constitutional reviews, audits and inquiries. Not through the electoral lens: Does this embarrass us? Can we blame the last government? Can we postpone it? But through the long lens: What challenges does it reveal? What must change regardless of who governs? What does it mean for the Vanua, institutions and the next generation? What lessons must never be lost when governments change?
The first is political management. The second is national stewardship.
Our electoral cycle is four years; a nation’s life is measured in generations. Government should plan for the next generation, not the next election.
The pattern is familiar. A commission consults and reports; some recommendations are adopted, others ignored. An inquiry exposes failure, then is shelved. An investigation uncovers red flags, but those flags become truths to avoid rather than confront. Names change. The cycle does not.
Each time, Fiji loses institutional memory, and the next government risks starting from zero. Citizens pay—in wasted resources, declining trust, poor infrastructure, delayed land administration and weak institutions.
This is not about one government. Office creates an illusion of superior wisdom. Politics does the same.
An election gives a government authority to govern. It does not give it ownership of the country. Power is not a trophy or a weapon. It is a trust. Government is a custodian, not an owner. It holds the country in trust for those who elected it—and for those not yet born to vote.
Power should be judged not simply by what it achieves in office, but by what it leaves behind. A promise to citizens is a responsibility, not a slogan.
Parliament must never become a private club. MPs are elected to represent citizens and exercise public power on their behalf, not to become an insider class. Citizens must be heard before decisions affecting them are made. Accountability cannot stop at Parliament’s door.
The deeper danger is government believing it owns the truth while citizens are expected to be grateful rather than heard. Speeches cannot correct that. Institutions must require governments to listen, explain, remember and account.
Every review, inquiry and commission should be treated as a national diagnostic, not a political weapon. Governments should formally respond to recommendations, explaining what they accept, what they reject and why. Parliament should track implementation. Independent institutions should report publicly. Findings should inform national planning, budgeting and policy. We should build humility into the system, not depend on ministerial humility.
Water, land, housing, infrastructure, the economy, education, the environment and people are not silos; they are parts of one national system. Planning must see the whole.
A National Planning Commission could provide that long view—connecting economic planning with infrastructure, land, housing, transport, skills, employment, environmental sustainability and iTaukei aspirations, while reporting publicly to Parliament.
Our system has brought Fiji this far, but parts were designed for another era. It is like running a modern vehicle with an old engine. The answer is not to stop it, but to redesign the engine while keeping the country moving.
Such a commission must not become another ministry or an elite club. It must be independent, accountable and connected to citizens, with multidisciplinary membership—planners, economists, engineers, social and environmental specialists, experienced practitioners, and national institutions and realities, including the BLV where appropriate. No single profession can design a nation.
Nor should any government forget what previous governments learned. The real test is not whether a government accepts a report that praises it, but whether it studies one that challenges it. It must accept what is right, explain what it rejects, implement what citizens need, and preserve the lessons for those who come after.
Governments come and go. Fiji and the Vanua remain. Let every government treat every review, inquiry, commission and audit as part of our nation’s collective memory.
Study it. Publish the response. Implement what is right. Explain what is rejected. Measure success not by the next election alone, but by what remains for the next generation.
A government must read the signs—not only polls and headlines, but the times and the country’s needs.
That is how a nation remembers. That is how a nation learns. That is how a nation plans. And that is how Fiji becomes more than the sum of its governments.
