THE Fiji Times spoke to a few shoeshine boys in the Suva City about their understanding of the upcoming 2018/2019 National Budget announcement scheduled for tomorrow and the majority answered they knew very little.
Joseva Maciu, 24, of Suva said: “What budget announcement? We want to know because we don’t know about it.”
Toga Veiqaravi, 25, also of Suva said most of them only get to hear things like the budget on the radio and sometimes on TV.
“But we know very little about it; what it involves or what will it say,” Mr Veiqaravi said.
However they both agreed that a general increase in wages across Fiji would really benefit them.
“There will be more money available to us shoeshine boys; we will definitely benefit when there’s a lot more money around. Also with the increasing cost of food items our daily help for our families are getting very little,” Mr Maciu said.
He said most shoeshine boys relied on the extra money people had to be able to afford to have their shoes or sandals shined.
The Fiji Times asked them what they really wanted from Government in the budget and they both answered how could they, as shoeshine boys go about asking Government.
Most understood very little about Government processes or the national budget because they said it didn’t directly affect them.
