Apenisa Waqairadovu 
Opposition MP Praveen Bala
The Parliament Secretary has taken note of a Standing Order against Opposition MP Praveen Bala.
This after Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Professor Biman Prasad moved that Bala is using parliament to incite racial hatred.
Bala, in his response to the national budget, says the new scholarship system that replaces the Tertiary Education Loans Scheme is a badly thought-out election promise.
The Opposition MP says the Finance Minister is simply keeping his job by keeping his promise.
“In fact, he knows very well that a scheme such as TELS is the only way to have a system that has the most accessible means to higher education for all the people of Fiji. Its replacement is a system that many suffered under, and he would know of the discrimination faced on racial grounds, as he was a student in the 1980s and 1990s.”
Finance Minister Professor Biman Prasad immediately raised a point of order, claiming that Bala is inciting racial hatred.
“The honorable member is fanning racial hatred by lying, because this is what they did before the election; they said there would be a race-based scholarship under Standing Order 62. This man, who has just lied before, is now using Parliament to incite racial hatred. That’s what he’s done.”
Prasad says nowhere in the budget does it say any of those programs will be based on race.
The Finance Minister says this needs to be dealt with.
Speaker Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu then asked the Parliament Secretary to take note of the point of order, saying this was the second time.
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