Poverty in Fiji is now measured by consumption including the food grown in a family backyard, and not just income, says Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
He made the comment at a news conference on Tuesday night, where he highlighted issues in the Fiji Bureau of Statistics providing ethnic and religious data in the 2019-2020 Household Income and Expenditure Survey.
“We of course appreciate any independent office carrying out a proper, professional independent analysis of any data and understand the importance of reliable, timely and accurate statistics,” the A-G said.
“And many may not know this or many may not delve further into this – we in fact approved this new methodology of moving away from what we call using the traditional income measure for welfare analysis — to using consumption expenditure for poverty measurement.”
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said the consumption-based methodology for measuring poverty would “accurately and better assist in policymaking”.
He said the new yardstick did not just look at how much money a household earned but also at how they had access to services.
“This includes things like, for example, subsidised electricity, access to subsidised transportation.
“So even though I may be, for example, living in a rural area – I may be able to feed myself – I don’t need to necessarily buy my cassava or buy my bindhi or my bhaji because I grow it myself.
“So I do have access to food.
“The previous methodology was dependent on how much money you had in your pocket.
“A lot of people actually are able to have access to food, have access to various other amenities because they either grow the food themselves or for example there is Government assistance provided – not in terms of cash but in terms of other facilities or amenities – whether subsidy of electricity or water or transportation.”
