Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has today clarified the concerns raised by the Fiji Commerce and Employers Federation on the use of the Employers One Percent levy from next January.

Sayed-Khaiyum says the decision was made following discussions with Fiji National University, after a number of small to medium companies raised concerns that they were unable to make use of the levy.

Every employer in Fiji contributes one percent of the gross pay salary towards the National Training and Productivity Center and the money is used to train employees with courses available at FNU.

Sayed-Khaiyum says from January, half of the approximately twenty-three million dollars from the one percent levy will go towards paying consultation fees of those who visit a general practitioner.

“If from January next year – you are able to visit the local GP in your area without you having to pay for it, you may finish with your GP within 15 minutes and obviously that needs to be paid for. So 50% of the levy that is being collected will actually go towards paying for private visits to general practitioners.”

Sayed-Khaiyum also clarified why forty percent of the fund will be used by the Fiji Accident Compensation Commission and there will be no requirement for employers to take out worker compensation insurance.

“So this is somebody who had a company and was a sub-contractor of a sub-contractor and this company’s job was to cart gravel up somewhere in the Nadroga/Navosa hills. So the driver who is driving for him had an accident, the truck tumbled and he was crushed to death. So he died while working. It so happened that the employer did not have workers compensation. So his family had absolutely no opportunity to get any form of compensation.”

The remaining ten percent will go towards the National Training and Productivity Center.

Sayed-Khaiyum says they have urged NTPC to offer courses that are more attuned to the needs and demands of small and medium businesses.