National Federation Party Leader Professor Biman Prasad says lack of infrastructure is a critical problem with growing our economy.

The opposition MP says this is in particular to the Energy Fiji Limited and Water Authority of Fiji, questioning why tens of thousands of people are without water every day, and why there are constant power cuts.

Professor Prasad says the government needs to focus on these developments instead of trying to blame past governments.

“Honorable Ministers on the other side still blame past governments, I still hear them blaming past governments. But they forget Mr. Speaker that they’ve been the past government for the last 15 years, they have had 15 years to fix this problem and in that time, this government has spent $50 billion dollars of our money.”

He adds that reports of national problems with their solutions needed to be presented to parliament.

“It is the government’s job to report on the failures and how we will fix them, but this government, I’ve noticed that in the last seven and a half years I’ve been in parliament is actually afraid of admitting failure. It is afraid of admitting it is wrong. “

In response, Assistant Minister for Employment, Productivity and Industrial Relations Alvick Maharaj says Professor Prasad’s response was a cheap attack on the government.

“For the first time, I would like to defer from honorable Faiyaz Koya. He actually said that honorable Biman Prasad is going to give a dollar worth of contribution. I would say that his contribution was not even worth 20c.”

The Budget debate continues today.