Four volumes containing articles written by author and economist Professor Wadan Narsey are now available on the market.
Part of his Community Education Articles, the four books contain hundreds of articles that Prof Narsey has written for newspapers – most notably The Fiji Times.
Volume One is titled The Challenges of Growing the Fiji Economy, Volume Two A Fair Go for all Fiji: Workers, Women and Others, Volume Three The Challenges of Protecting Democracy, Rule of Law and Media Freedom in Fiji, and Volume Four For a Decent Fiji (Education, USP, Health, Social Ills and Good People).
Speaking at the launch at USP on Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Professor Biman Prasad said all university professors write and many publish books.
“But no university professor in Fiji’s history has contributed so much to public debate as Professor Narsey,” he said.
“For me, this is a very important point. And for this, too, we should thank The Fiji Times, which by publishing Prof Narsey’s articles, has stayed true to the principles of a free and independent news media.
“It has continued to publish diverse and often dissenting views, despite all the legal and financial pressures they have been put under from the previous government.”
Prof Narsey also noted his books had come into existence after realising that not everyone had the time to browse through the archives and read his articles. Therefore, the logical choice was to offer those articles in a compact, convenient form.
“I hope my four volumes of writing give some guidance to the people of Fiji because our government cannot solve these problems on their own,” he said, adding the book was dedicated to the people of Fiji.
“Everybody expects the Government ‘hey Biman, do this, do that’, but it’s the people of Fiji who have to dig our country out of the hole that we are in.
“Without this help from the private sector and from the organisations, NGOs and others, we will still remain in the hole. On his own, the minister can’t order the economy to sort itself out.”
