The Fiji National Provident Funds has seen an increase in monthly contributions since the reopening of borders.

Fund General Manager Customer Services, Alipate Waqairawai, says this basically indicates that many people are now working, which is a healthy sign.

“Pre COVID we used to receive sort of receive about $50-$55 million in workers contribution after COVID it went down to about $20-$25 million but now its picking up we are hitting $27-$30 million so we already seen the upward recovery in trajectory to contributions.”

Waqairawai also says that for the soon to end financial year, they recorded more than 19,000 new member accounts.

According to Waqairawai, the fund also went through a cleansing process of member accounts that had zero balances.

He says they had to reflect this in their books.

However, Waqairawai again stresses that they are unable to terminate these zero balance accounts, as laws prohibit the FNPF from doing so without members’ consent.