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SPINNING A YARN: Now PDP's Krishna Datt forced to tell Fiji SUN that Nirmal Singh has been relieved of party spokesman role in favour of Adi Sivia Qoro! That is Datt's "understanding"

31/1/2014

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PictureDatt: Loud but not clear
_Krishna Datt on Nirmal Singh

Regarding the party spokesman, the former school principal said he was not kicked out of the party. “Obviously there were some statements made (by Mr Singh) that were a little bit controversial – not all members had the same view but in broad general terms, he put the party profile up – we’ve got to acknowledge that help and support.
“But increasingly as the party founders, we began to think that we should now begin to project someone as in the leadership role much more – coming closer to the elections.
“For that reason we have relied on Adi Sivia and Nirmal himself had suggested that she should play this role much more. And I think it’s the right move for us because ultimately I’m hoping that she will provide the leadership that we are looking for in the PDP,” Mr Datt said. “Nirmal Singh from my understanding has stood down in favour of Adi Sivia. He has stood down in the sense that he has said that she should begin to take a clearer role in this. That’s my understanding. “He himself said it and rightfully we all feel the same way – that Adi Sivia should be projected much more vigorously in a leadership role. “His difficulties arise from some legal interpretation of involvement of unionists in the party and that we’ll try to handle that at the workshop.” Read more: Datt: The real PDP story.

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U-TURN: The 2013 Fiji Constitution will be amended by new Decree to have Electoral Boundaries and it will be one Electorate, say A-G sources

31/1/2014

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31/1/2014

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LIKE the illegal regime, Dengue Fever out of control throughout Fiji: 1422 confirmed cases are the highest ever on record since 2006 coup

30/1/2014

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STARVED OF PUBLICITY! Former PDP's spokesman Nirmal Singh was booted out on 20 January by party big wigs. It's not true, as Fiji Sun reports, that he will consider his position with the party at the weekend. 

29/1/2014

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A WELL-PLACED  People's Democratic Party source has revealed that the former party spokesman Nirmal Singh was fired from his role on Monday 20 January 2014 by the Executive Board following a highly acrimonious showdown in Suva when the Board members confronted him over his several unauthorized statements to the media lavishing praise on the regime's Budget and other ill-informed statements (see right-hand column)

The Board confronted him on Monday morning, about why he defied party directives, policies and principles. The "One-Man Showman" flew into frenzied rage, screaming and shouting at his party inquisitors, and said that he was leaving the party for good.

It is understood that he then went to the Fiji Sun saying that he would be deciding his future with the party next weekend. This appeared in the Wednesday 29 January 2014 Fiji Sun.  

The source accused Singh of misleading the SUN: "It seems he ran to the media to make out to the people of Fiji that he was quitting the party because of trade unionsists Felix Anthony and Daniel Urai."

The truth, the source claims, is that Singh is no longer party spokesman. He had harboured ambitions to lead the party instead of party president Adi Sivia Qoro.

The source says Singh even deployed "scare tactic" by disclosing that he was recently approached by the regime's self-appointed Attorney-General and Minister for Elections Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum to join Frank Bainimarama's proposed new party.
 
Nirmal Singh has not responded to questions e-mailed to him.


It is widely believed that Singh will cross-over to Bainimarama's party in the coming months.

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FBI: Frank Bainimarama's Intelligence man in the US Embassy? Former PDP's motor-mouth Nirmal Singh silent on charges he was booted out of US Embassy for asking US ambassador to support coup 

29/1/2014

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Singh was flown to Washington, interrogated by US spy agency FBI and sacked from his embassy job as Political & Public Affairs Specialist in 2007

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NEXT FLIGHT? Fiji SUN is reporting that Nirmal Singh has been meeting with senior party officials since last week to determine his next step. An announcement is expected to be made on the weekend.
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STITCHING UP FOR ELECTION: "We have 600 sewing machines coming in from China and another 300 from India. We also have 80 machines left in our office for distribution and we will hand these out before elections." Women's Minister Jiko Luveni

28/1/2014

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As rugby coach Ben Ryan waits for $300,000 in unpaid salary, 15s coach Inoke Male and five others unceremoniously get the boot from FRU

27/1/2014

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Also booted out are logistics manager Semi Rogoyawa, Sevens administrator Priya Cook, storeman Maretino Atonio and
groundsman Kaveni Raitamata

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By VICTOR LAL

The Fiji Rugby Union has been forced to lay off five employees – including popular national 15s coach Inoke Male – as the International Rugby Board’s $3.3m financial sanctions over the military-dominated administration’s woeful running of the national game start to bite.

The unlucky five including a Rugby House kitman and a janitor were called in one by one to the office of acting CEO Dr Berlin Kafoa to receive their enveloped termination letters as the FRU struggles to balance the books after the IRB confirmed they would be withholding the annual development grant of £1m, almost three years after the Bainimarama government took control of the FRU by forcing fresh board elections using funding for the 2011 Rugby World Cup as an inducement.

The IRB has so little faith in the running of the FRU – led for two years from 2011 by the Land Force commander Colonel Mosese Tikoitoga as chairman, and now by permanent secretary Finance Filimone Waqabaca – that they wanted to appoint their own hand-picked director to safeguard the IRB funding.

As if the sackings were not bad enough, word from Las Vegas is that Ben Ryan has still not been paid a penny of the $300,000 salary promised by the Fiji National Sports Commission, run by one of Bainimarama’s daughters. It’s understood the FNSC is holding up all FRU payments until they are satisfied with the paperwork and acquittals provided by the FRU for the three-Test tour of Europe late last year which was partly-financed by Commission.

That process of financial reconciliation could now take even longer as Male was coach of the Europe tour, and another of the sacked employees, Semi Rogoyawa was the tour’s logistics manager.

And to top off all the drama and intrigue, mystery still surrounds the outcome of the biggest and potentially most controversial sponsorship deal in the country’s history, even though the key Fiji Rugby Union board member in charge of sponsorship has returned after an invigorating detox programme that involved daily bowel cleansing, male on male full-body massages and spiritual readings and lessons.

Supermarket tycoon Baljeet Singh, who has successfully whipped up the fevered competition between Vodafone and Digicel, was an inpatient at the Rakiraki-based Masada Practice run by Dr Epeli Nailatikau.

It’s understood that Singh and the rest of the FRU board were stunned by Digicel’s decision to match the $5-6m per annum offer from a Vodafone-led consortium, as was their right under Digicel’s just-expired FRU sponsorship agreement.

And the board are not really certain how to proceed without risking the ire of prime minister Frank Bainimarama.

A press conference to unveil regime-friendly Vodafone as the new lead sponsor, along with Fiji Airways, C J Patel, Merchant Finance and Fijian Holdings, was scheduled by the FRU for January 17 and then cancelled at the last minute – but so late in the day that the Fiji Airways CEO had already left Nadi for Suva.

In between all of the sackings, the FRU board have now asked for two separate outside counsel to test what flexibility there is to proceed with Vodafone in spite of Digicel’s offer.


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INOKE MALE: Popular with with rugby fans but falls foul with FRU Board - gets the boot
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DETOXED: Baljeet Singh still struggling to clean up the FRU financial mess. Supermarket tycoon Singh, who has successfully whipped up the fevered competition between Vodafone and Digicel, was an inpatient at the Rakiraki-based Masada Practice run by Dr Epeli Nailatikau.
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HOLE IN THE WALLET: Word from Las Vegas is that Ben Ryan has still not been paid a penny of the $300,000 salary promised by the Fiji National Sports Commission, run by one of Bainimarama’s daughters.
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Dictating dictator daddy's agenda: It’s understood the FNSC is holding up all FRU payments until they are satisfied with the paperwork and acquittals provided by the FRU for the three-Test tour of Europe late last year which was partly-financed by Commission. And the FRU board are not really certain how to proceed without risking the ire of prime minister Frank Bainimarama.
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CLOWNS OF FRU BOARD: In 2011, the dictator had appointed New Zealander and Suva-based lawyer Carl Ngamoki-Cameron as his nominee to the FRU Board.
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"No Military Officer will benefit from the coup". Well, they will, come in, buy from Prison Commissioner Lieutenant-Colonel Ifereimi Vasu's Kadavu shop, run from his family home, and stocked by jailbird Suncourt boss Bhikha from inside Naboro Prison

26/1/2014

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The Kadavu shop of Prison Commissioner Lieutenant-Colonel Ifereimi Vasu

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DEATHLY SILENCE! Professor Wadan Narsey laments "The hibernation of native Fijian intellectuals since the 2006 coup"

24/1/2014

9 Comments

 
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By Wadan Narsey

Since independence in 1970, this last seven years have probably been the most earth-shaking for indigenous Fijians as a community, yet Fijian intellectuals seem to be in public hibernation.

A military dictatorship, with unknown advisers, is bringing about major changes to Fijian institutions: the Great Council of Chiefs has been supposedly  abolished; provincial governance structures reorganized; the laws of management of communally owned Fijian land and marine resources (some with serious environmental impacts); flagship Fijian companies such as Fijian Holdings Limited have been reorganized; controls have been placed on Fijian churches and villages; Fijian cultural symbols are being changed by decree, without their consent.

Massive changes in economic policy are affecting not just Fijians but all Fiji citizens in: taxation and expenditure of tax-payer funds, privatization and sale of public assets, restructuring of pension funds, controversial approval for new industries such as casinos and mines, a huge increase in public debt that must be paid for by future generations which will be increasingly indigenous Fijian, and much more.

The views of the Bainimarama Regime leaders are prominent every day on radio, television and in the newspapers, with extremely limited coverage given to opposing political leaders.

It is dismaying therefore that there is a deafening silence from Fijian intellectuals  from the universities and the private sector-  with the exception of a few rare individuals such as Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi or young youth leaders like Peter Waqavonovono.

One may well ask, where are the Rusiate Nayacakalaus, Jo Kamikamicas, Savenaca Siwatibaus, Amelia Rokotuivunas and Sir Kamisese Maras, of today?

Hibernating intellectuals?

It is natural that ordinary indigenous Fijians look to indigenous Fijian intellectuals at the universities, corporate entities and non-government organizations for guidance and debate on their major societal issues. Yet indigenous Fijian academics, corporate types and the plethora of legal professionals appear to be lying low.

In a pattern repeated from the seventies, senior Fijian academics at USP (and now FNU) happily allow themselves to be promoted into sterile administrative work, or export themselves to universities abroad. Also largely absent are the voices of Fijian senior corporate types from the private and public sectors, currently working in Fiji or abroad, or retired.

Even prominent Fijian intellectual political leaders (of whom the electorates expected better), disappeared out of sight (leaving Qarase to cop the flack alone) or joined the bandwagon. Are these intellectual leaders (Missing in Action) secretly discussing these issues amongst their communities? Or are they waiting to see who are going to be the winners, before they jump on the winning band-wagon?

The curse of entertainment and blogging

Is it a coincidence that most of our media organizations (television, radio and newspapers), are diverting the largest part of public discourse into entertainment- sports (rugby sevens), Bollywood and Hollywood, singing competitions, and religious frenzy.

Policy debates are raised quite rarely, and even then in totally innocuous fashion, without the attention they deserve. One phenomenon of our times, with mixed blessings, is the massive rise of anonymous blogging (by all ethnic groups), where the calm rational voices are totally outnumbered by nasty posts, often racist and violent in nature.

Is the ability to blog anonymously dissipating the energies of Fijian intellectuals, thereby ensuring that they make little attempt to engage in honest public debates using their own names? The real misfortune is that the anonymous blogs are usually read largely by the “converted” and not those whose minds have not been made up, but are daily being influenced by the media which is currently dominated by Regime propaganda.

I suspect also that even the rational educative blogger is ineffective, since anonymity robs the views of their full effectiveness.

Who will dispute that a public statement  by Savenaca Siwatibau or any other respected Fijian leader, would have a far greater impact than an anonymous Letter to the Editor or a similar but anonymous blog posting?

Of course, having views unpopular with those in power, must come at some personal cost, as it does everywhere in the world.

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EXCEPTION: Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi
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_ But are indigenous Fijian intellectuals as a group choosing a totally wrong balance between active transparent social responsibility and self-seeking self-preserving “culture” of silence?


Silence is not golden

Elections will be held within the next eight months and political candidates of all persuasions will be expressing their views in trying to influence the outcome of the elections.

It would be of great help to indigenous Fijian voters (and others) if politically neutral Fijian intellectuals from the universities, private and NGO sectors,  were to actively express their views on national policy matters which will become election issues, whichever political side their views happen to fall.

Silence from our Fijian intellectuals at this critical juncture in Fiji’s history, is not going to be golden. It certainly has not helped the Fijian community so far.

http://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/the-hibernation-of-fijian-intellectuals-22-january-2014-2/
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Wadan Narsey's Letters to the Editor

Letter to the Editor (Fiji Times, Fiji Sun, Island Business, Republika)

22 January 2014


The Electoral Commission and “rubber stamps”?

Dear Sir

It might reassure some that the Electoral Commission has announced that it will not be a “rubber stamp” for the Bainimarama Government.   Unfortunately, some members come with historical baggage.

Some of the Commission members were part of the National Council for Building a Better Fiji, which produced the People’s Charter, the first paragraph of which declared that the 1997 Constitution would be supreme.

However, when the Court of Appeal 2009 judgment declared the Bainimarama Government to be illegal, Bainimarama purportedly abrogated the Constitution, with not a single public protest from the members of the NCBBF, including some who are now members of the Electoral Commission. 

Not only were they betrayed, but so also were the hundreds of thousands of the Fiji public who supposedly signed up in support of that Charter “referendum” organized by John Samy.

The public notes that contrary to the requirements of the 2013 Bainimarama/Khaiyum Constitution (BKC), the Commission members have all been appointed by Bainimarama without any consultation with other political parties, and most are either open or closet supporters of his regime.

One member of the Commission, through her accounting company, is clearly also playing ball with the Bainimarama Government in what economists would see as a totally undesirable distortion of the Permanent Secretary salary structure, announced just two weeks prior to the last budget.

Nevertheless, the public can still give these Commission members the benefit of the doubt and hope that as otherwise decent individuals, they will do their utmost to ensure free and fair elections as is required by the 2013 BKC, and not be used as a “rubber stamp” by the Bainimarama Government.

The public hopes that the Commission members will also be collectively and individually accountable to the public in fully informing them, should any untoward pressure be placed on them  during their work.

Lack of resources for their work cannot be taken as an excuse, given that the Bainimarama Government has had seven years to plan the elections, and in the last two years alone, has allocated a massive 1 billion dollars to road building. There should be no need at all to depend on or use donor resources, despite their willingness to assist.

Professor Wadan Narsey


Letter to the Editor (Fiji Times, Fiji Sun, Island Business, Republika)

22 January 2014


Ensuring a fair elections game

Dear Sir

It might reassure some that the Electoral Commission has announced that it will not be a “rubber stamp” for the Bainimarama Government but will do its utmost to ensure “free and fair” elections.

The current reality indicates otherwise.

In any free and fair “game”, the opposing teams play on a “level playing field” with no side having any unfair advantage, and both sides know exactly what the rules of the game are going to be decided independently, before they start the game.

By these criteria, the Electoral Commission is surely aware that the elections games are currently not fair at all: one side is appointing their own referee, while giving itself all the penalties and free kicks it wants.

First, the unelected Bainimarama Ministers can clearly be accused of using tax-payers’ money and donor resources, on a weekly basis to buy voter support, just as previous governments were accused of doing, such as through the Agricultural Scam.

Second, the media is clearly giving far more coverage to pro-Bainimarama statements (by ministers, supporters and editorials) than to Opposition voices.

Third, the Bainimarama Government still has not announced what exactly will be the rules of the elections game-i.e. the electoral system and regulations which they themselves are going to impose on the country (having dumped the independent Ghai Commission rules),  leaving the political parties totally ignorant of the rules they will be playing under.

Fourth, by not announcing the exact elections date, the Bainimarama Regime is denying other political parties and civil society organisations the opportunity to properly plan their voter education campaigns and prepare their teams for the election games.

Fifth, they have unilaterally appointed their own electoral referees.

In contrast, Commodore Bainimarama and his advisory cabal, are no doubt well aware of the rules of the game they will be imposing on Fiji, and when.

There is clearly no level playing field for all parties facing the upcoming elections games.

To show the public that they are genuine about ensuring free and fair elections and not merely being “rubber stamps”, the Electoral Commission must publicly require the Bainimarama Government

(a) to immediately release details of the electoral system and regulations under which elections will be held.

(b) to announce when exactly they intend to hold the elections.

(c) to require ministers who are going to be candidates in the elections, to resign from government six months before the elections, to ensure that they do not use tax payers’ and donors funds for their campaigning.

(d) to require that the MIDA act immediately to ensure that there is political balance in the media reporting.

Professor Wadan Narsey

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