KEY POINTS:
It is late afternoon on a typically muggy Friday afternoon in Suva. Inside a cool air-conditioned office on the waterfront, Fiji's tourism minister is grappling with a luscious piece of fresh pineapple.
It's the day the Fiji Government is announcing its Budget, and Bernadette Rounds Ganilau has hardly
had time to eat.
She invites me to share the fruit. "I buy it from the people in the streets. I love to support people working," she says as she snaps the slice in two and insists I take the larger portion.
Rounds Ganilau is in a good mood despite a pile of unread Cabinet papers on her desk. Tourism marketing has been allocated $12 million in the Budget, a figure which disappointed the Fiji Visitors Bureau, but which she thought was reasonable given the Government was "broke".
Rounds Ganilau knows the hard financial truth because last year, she was the chairwoman of the public accounts committee."We were very low in overseas reserves."
A member of the United People's Party, Rounds Ganilau was deputy leader of the opposition before the coup in December last year, representing Fiji's minorities (everyone but Fijians and Indians).
She did not want to join the interim Government because she thought it would not last but was persuaded - although some of her friends didn't approve.
She had no experience in the tourism industry but accepted the portfolio, as well as environment, labour and industrial relations. It has been a challenge.
This year, tourism is expected to have shrunk by 7.5 per cent. Visitor arrivals are down 8.3 per cent, and hotel turnover has dropped 6.6 per cent.
Rounds Ganilau says the losses go right down the chain to craft makers, village tour operators and those supplying fresh produce to hotels.
There has been a 10 per cent fall in visitors from New Zealand and Australia, who provide about 60 per cent of Fiji's tourists.
She is grateful for those not deterred by the political upheavals.
"We are truly thankful for their loyalty ... they have continued to come despite warnings from your prime minister."
Fiji tourism representatives have been to the New Zealand High Commission in Suva to discuss the travel advisories which are keeping some away.
But the minister says: "I won't make an approach, I am too busy."
She then mock whispers from behind her hand, "Besides, I don't like to beg."
Rounds Ganilau says the number of visitors from Canada rose 25 per cent after the coup, and those from the United States dropped by only a few per cent.
Overall, the target of 550,000 tourist numbers for the year was missed by only about 50,000.
"Despite the abnormal situation we are doing okay."
Air Pacific, Fiji's national airline, has just announced it is is putting on 58 extra flights over the summer season and Rounds Ganilau is confident she can bring in more visitors.
The Chinese market has been opening up since 2005 when Fiji was included as an approved destination, and Rounds Ganilau is just back from a China travel mart where she says officials took orders for large numbers.
Fiji was attracting 2000 to 3000 Chinese tourists a year but the figure for the year to September is over 5000.
Rounds Ganilau is also nurturing a plan to lure Chinese to Fiji by sailing them to the edge of Fiji's exclusive economic zone, where they can gamble on luxury vessels.
Russia is another emerging market, from which each tourist is worth up to twice the average New Zealand tourist.
"They stay for a month and have spending power."
There is a language problem but interpreters are being trained.
"Russians just come to thaw ... all they want to do is sit in the sun and eat and drink."
She says tourism workers are slowly being reinstated, and praises employees and managers for their endurance.
On the wall a large framed photo of Commodore Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, "Prime Minister of Fiji" beams in my direction.
Earlier that day, at the Budget presentation in the Tradewinds Convention Centre in Lami, near Suva, Bainimarama looks a little bored. Occasionally he closes his eyes, or impassively stares into the middle distance. Sitting centre-stage in his cane chair his pose is regal. But it is the interim finance minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, to his right who is doing all the talking in front of the Fijian flag.
Despite the upbeat approach of the tourism minister, the news is not good as Chaudhry delivers the $1.53 billion Budget, which aims to have the economy grow by 2.2 per cent.
Deposed as prime minister in the 2000 coup, Chaudhry says the earlier revised Budget in March was needed to avert a financial and economic crisis following six years of "financial indiscipline" and mismanagement.
He claims the debt inherited from the previous Government reached unsustainable levels and cites "fraudulent activities" and the flouting of tax laws.
He says the economy is recovering but acknowledges it is expected to decline by 3.9 per cent this year compared to average growth of 2.8 per cent in the past five years.
Chaudhry blames the economic woes on flash floods which destroyed sugar crops, a slump in building and construction, the halt to gold production at the Vatukoula mines and the reduced number of tourists coming to the country.
He also notes a sharp decline in remittances of cash from overseas, which have fallen by nearly a third.
The country is also struggling with its fuel bill.
In 2000 Fiji paid $332 million for oil, 18 per cent of its total import bills. Last last year's oil bill was just over $1 billion or about one third of the imports bill.
Chaudry's delivery is upbeat but there are no silver bullets to beat the country's woes.
But he gives special thanks to the Chinese Government for offering a $242 million concessional loan to help upgrade rural infrastructure including roads, water, and low cost housing.
Chaudhry says the Government is conscious of the growing social distress of its people.
More than half the population is living in or on the brink of poverty, and the problem is exacerbated by high unemployment and low wages.
He says that in the months after "the events of December 5" there had been a sharp increase in the prices of basic food items and household consumer products.
The Budget reduces the cost of such food items, including canned fish and dahl, but Chaudhry says this is not a populist budget to curry short term favour.
He assures his audience the Government is committed to holding elections, and allocates $3.5 million in the Budget to prepare for them.
But after the Budget has been read and the officials gather for a round of handshaking, Rishi Ram, the general secretary of the Fiji Taxi Union sidles up and says "there's nothing for us in the Budget".
Earlier in the week, I had met him at the Albert Park Kiosk where taxi drivers take their tea breaks, behind the rugby stadium opposite the Government buildings.
He told me Fiji taxis had the highest fuel costs and the lowest fares in the world.
They are allowed to charge only $1.50 a kilometre and that amount has not been increased in seven years.
Fiji has about 6200 taxis, and Ram says the drivers earn about $35 a day.
Attar Singh, the general secretary of the Fiji Islands Council of Trade Unions dismisses Chaudhry as an "embarrassing hypocrite' who is out for revenge after being kicked out of two previous governments .
"On those occasions he stood up for democracy ... this time he has aligned himself with a corrupt regime."
Chaudhry is a former trade union leader who now preaches privatisation in a right leaning administration, he says .
"He talks about corruption but has nothing to say about a minimum wage."
Singh says job losses have been widespread, and many of those still in work were not fully employed and were working for lower rates than they had before the coup.
The Government had cut public sector wages - affecting about 25,000 workers - by 5 per cent, and the private sector had followed suit with cuts of up to 15 per cent.
In the tourism industry, some wage cuts were even higher - slashed by up to 25 per cent.
Before the coup, the union had been negotiating to keep the struggling Vatukoula goldmine open but plans for its survival were put off by the coup, costing 1700 jobs.
Now, the Fiji sugar industry is said to be heading for collapse within five years.
A European Union support package worth $274 million has been put on hold unless commitments are made on human rights abuses.
"That means they are unlikely to progress," says Singh.
He fears the coup will prove to be in vain. Because Fijians increasingly outnumber other ethnic groups and voters will support the parties which are most likely to represent them, he can foresee only a return of ousted Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase's SDL Party.
"Nothing will have been achieved. All this will have been for zilch."
As I queue at Nadi Airport to leave Fiji, an Indian family ahead are migrating to New Zealand. They say there are at least two such families on every flight out. I remark that I thought the Fijian Indians generally supported this new regime.
"That is why we are leaving ... we are waiting for the backlash," the father says.
* Angela Gregory's visit to Fiji was sponsored by the Pacific Co-operation Foundation (www.pcf.org.nz)
FIJI'S FOUR COUPS
* May 14 1987
Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka and a group of masked and armed men hijack the multi-racial Government, headed by Prime Minister Dr Timoci Bavadra.
* September 25 1987
Rabuka stages a second coup. He imposes martial law, deposes the Governor-General, scraps the constitution and declares himself head of state.
* May 19 2000
Businessman George Speight and a heavily armed squad take over Parliament and hold members of the Labour Party-led Government headed by Indo-Fijian Mahendra Chaudhry.
* December 5 2006
Fiji's military head Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama forces Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase out of office. His justifications include the Qarase Government's proposed racially divisive legislation, the soft treatment of former coup leaders and the need for a "clean-up campaign" to tackle a corrupt public service.
FIJI FACTS
* Population 829,000, made up of 473,983 (57 per cent) indigenous Fijians and 311,591 (38 per cent) Fijian Indians (this year's census).
* In 1996, Indians were 44 per cent of the population.
* 25000 people of Fijian origin live in New Zealand
* Between 5000 and 10,000 New Zealanders live in Fiji
* 100,000 New Zealanders visit Fiji each year
* Up to 18,000 Fijians visit New Zealand each year, about one third on work or student visas
* New Zealand exports to Fiji are worth $350 million (16 per cent of Fiji's imports)
Fiji exports goods worth $57 million to New Zealand
* Twenty per cent of Fiji's tourists come from New Zealand
* New Zealand will spend $6 million in its 2007/2009 aid programme for Fiji - about half what was being spent before the coup.
