No jab, no job policy revoked in Fiji

Fiji’s Attorney General Siromi Turaga has confirmed that the government has revoked the No Jab, No Job policy.

Turaga said cabinet has decided to revoke the policy, effective Thursday. 

The Attorney General said Cabinet last month endorsed that the regulation be revoked. 

“Such a vocation will be effective from today; the same has been published in the gazette.” 

Turaga said those employees who were laid off because of the policy are now eligible to apply for employment. 

“I can confirm in particular for Fiji Airways, whose matter is before the court, that they are arriving at a settlement. We would pursue having the unions pursue this matter with the employer. As for government, it’s on a case-by-case basis. As you can understand, in some areas some positions have been filled. What we encouraged them to do was to make the application if there were vacancies.” 

Turaga said this is good news for unvaccinated citizens who were not able to worship with their loved ones. 

“That means now you can worship, there is no prohibition at the worship place. For anyone that had not been vaccinated, the lifting of the law basically allows access as was the situation before the law came into effect.” 

Permanent Secretary for Health Dr James Fong said initial steps had to be taken to protect public health. 

“There were measures that we had to take that were necessary for protection against severe disease and for us to be able to escalate our effort back to socio-economic recovery.” 

Dr Fong said it took a while before they rescinded the measure because some legal issues had to be addressed first.