Fiji’s Coalition Government revokes ‘no jab, no job’ COVID-19 policy

The ‘No Jab, No Job’ policy has been revoked.

Attorney-General Siromi Turaga announced yesterday that Cabinet had unanimously reached the decision to revoke the Health and Safety at Work (General Workplace Conditions) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 on Tuesday.

“Such revocation will be effective from today (yesterday),” he said, adding this would be gazetted.

Mr Turaga said the implementation of the 2021 amendment regulation was deemed a necessity at the height of the pandemic to protect human rights such as rights to life, health and safety.

“As you understand, the issue at that time was it was a difficult time for the nation, the first time for Fiji and other countries to grasp the enormity of the problems.”

He also said the high number of vaccination rates in Fiji had caused the objectives of the 2021 amendment on vaccination in the workplace to be achieved, thus it was now subject to review.

Speaking about those who had lost their jobs, Mr Turaga said they could apply to their respective organisations.

In the civil service, about 341 people chose not to be vaccinated.

He said there were also some matters pending in court which they could not comment on.

“Fiji had reached herd immunity last year, however, there was no action taken and this was one of the initiatives we had promised and we have delivered today.”

Mr Turaga said as of January 23, 2023, up to 90 per cent of patients over the age of 12 years were protected.