By  VICTOR LAL

FIJILEAKS HAS BEEN reliably informed that Aslam Khan, the CEO of Vodafone Fiji Limited will be retiring soon. He had informed the Board as far back as 2010 that he intended to retire in 2013 but was persuaded to remain for another year. In 2013 it was 20 years for Khan with Vodafone who had nurtured the company from scratch since 1993. Under his watch, the company saw it evolve from 2G, 3G and now 4G. He had seen through deregulation in 2008 and Vodafone has 85 per cent of the market share. Since 2010 the Board had been planning a smooth transition, with Pradeep Lal poised to takeover on Khan's retirement. Fijileaks could not get a comment from Khan of his future plans but Geneva could be a new destination where his wife and former High Court judge Nazhat Shameem was recently appointed as Fiji's Ambassador. A source inside Vodafone said "Khan's job is well done and they wish him all the best in his future plans".

Vodafone Fiji denies listening to calls

Vodafone Fiji has clarified that they do not listen to or record calls.

This is according to Managing Director Aslam Khan while responding to a report released by their headquarters in the United Kingdom which has publicly released statistics of legal intercept of call and calls records.                      
Khan said Vodafone Fiji provided this information to its Head Office in UK and consented to the statistics to be published for public consumption. He said they have nothing to hide and the 670 cases listed in the report under Vodafone Fiji is for information related to call records that is provided to Police and the Court on production of a search warrant or court order.  According to Khan the only information they provide on the production of a search warrant is the date and time of calls made or text messages sent between two parties and the duration of that call. He said this is the only information they capture and record for billing purposes. He said Vodafone Fiji does not have technical capability in its network to either listen to a telephone conversation or record a phone call or a text message. Source: Fijivillage News, 7 June 2014

FIJI coup leader Frank Bainimarama’s dreams of attending the Rugby World Cup next year on an all-expenses paid trip with his wife, as guest of the International Rugby Board, have been saved by the USP academic Esther Williams even though she was voted out of office by the provincial unions who own the Fiji Rugby Union less than a fortnight ago.

Bainimarama’s nomination to be president of the FRU – which qualifies him for business class travel and five-star accommodation for the whole of the tournament, provided Fiji qualified -  was imperilled by the incompetence of his own appointed nominee to the Fiji Rugby Union – Permanent Secretary Finance Filimone Waqabaca – as the FRU was forced to finally admit that the May 31 attempt at an Annual General Meeting was not lawful. Waqabaca told Fiji Live ‘there was some misunderstanding about numbers’ at the AGM, from which the media were banned.

The FRU was prodded into the admission by the Fiji National Sports Commission – which is effectively controlled by Bainimarama’s daughter, as CEO of the parallel Fiji Sports Council. The FNSC ruled that none of the appointments or motions made at the FRU’s annual general meeting – which requires a quorum of 40 - were legal. But the politics behind the FNSC’s intervention was clear. Although the FNSC trumpets itself as ensuring that ‘all sports and elected officials comply with their constitutions’  they have been strangely silent on the FRU’s breach of its own much more serious constitutional undertaking to hold an annual general meeting before the end of the April (clause 28). While the FNSC’s unprecedented intervention meant that Bainimarama’s appointment as President had to be revoked, Williams stepped in to clarify in a media statement that the board of directors had taken the unilateral decision to confirm Bainimarama as president even though these are powers vested in the annual general meeting. 

Such had been the fury amongst provincial unions about the incompetence of the FRU board – (highlights include, abandoning its search for a CEO in January after Bainimarama rejected the board’s agreed choice, preparing for an expensive court case with Digicel about its Vodafone deal, and currently suspended from receiving IRB grants worth more than $3m because of governance issues) that three of the four elected board were given the boot.The vote of no confidence was triggered by the Lautoka and Nadroga unions

Those voted out of office included Williams – not a noted rugby personality prior to her appointment last year  - former national prop Mo Taga and Waisea Vatuvoka. To replace them, delegates to the May 31 meeting had voted in Nadroga’s Tiko Matawalu, Marika Luveniyali and National Fire Authority chief executive John O’Connor as replacements. The three new board members attended one board meeting but, because of the fumbling over numbers, these nominations are now also invalid. Thus Williams has continued to act like a ‘zombie’ director – even though she knows she enjoys no support from the provincial unions that own the FRU – and will likely face a similar vote of no confidence whenever the AGM is eventually scheduled.

In addition to the month-long RWC freebie, Bainimarama’s honorary role as president is of great potential significance in the coming election campaign where his most significant political challenge is likely to come from the rugby-worshipping indigenous voter. Bainimarama would have been taking over as President from the Tui Madudu, Ratu Isikeli Tasere, who died in office. In one respect, the continuing shambles is a good thing for the political strategizing of Bainimarama. Delegates to the May 31 General Meeting – which was called off midway through the session to handle the vote of no confidence – did not get a chance to debate the financial report and matters relating to Vodafone’s controversial five-year sponsorship.

Huge political pressure from Bainimarama was placed on the FRU board, through Waqabaca, to accept a smaller cash deal from regime-friendly Vodafone than incumbent Digicel was prepared to pay. Vodafone tricked up its offer by padding it out a huge dollar value of unneccessary product in kind. So in February the FRU announced a $40 million, five-year sponsorship agreement with Vodafone leading a consortium of other Bainimarama-aligned companies like CJ Patel and Home Finance.  Days later Waqabaca admitted  that of that $40 million only $18 million was actually in cash: http://www.fijileaks.com/home/five-untruths-the-fiji-rugby-union-have-told-about-the-vodafone-deal. The remaining $22m is value-in-kind, some useful (like overseas travel for teams) but the majority is Vodafone commercial promotion expenditure and internal service provision to the FRU, talk-time credit etc.

In fact, as the permanent secretary Finance is expertly placed to know, the cash component is even less than the $18m (or $3.6 million per year). Delegates to the FRU annual general meeting would have seen the annual report make clear that Vodafone’s cash per year is shown as only $2.8m, or $14m over the five years. Because the FRU board agreed to make the $40m deal VAT inclusive, Rugby House has to pay 15 percent tax on the whole deal, not just the cash component. And the VAT payment to the government can only be paid in cash. So, $8m per year ($40m over five years) would generate an annual $1.2m VAT liability – to be paid from Vodafone’s annual $2.8m cash. This means that the net cash position provided by Vodafone may be as little as $1.6m once the VAT on the $8m/$40m is paid.

This compares with what Digicel has been quietly explaining to provincial union delegates they offered: $4.14m per year in cash – or more than $1.3m per year in cash more than Vodafone offered. The fact that Bainimarama and his appointee Waqabaca managed to drive the board to accept a lower cash value from Vodafone while exposing the FRU to a cripplingly high VAT liaibility is likely to be a key bone of contention when, if the AGM finally takes place.

It’s not clear when a rescheduled AGM is likely to be held: the FRU constitution requires at least 21 days notice to be given before a General Meeting but resolutions for the General Meeting need to be with the CEO 30 days before such a meeting. That would push the meeting well into July. This puts the FRU even further in breach of its own constitution which explains in 28.2 of the 2010 Constitution: ‘Members shall be given at least twenty-one days’ notice of the date of an Annual General Meeting and the Meeting shall be held no later than the last week of April in each year.’

Although Bainimarama is no respecter of constitutions even he and his acolytes can’t decree their way out of the problem this is causing. It’s understood that holding an annual general meeting – including having the accounts confirmed – is a critical condition that the IRB has demanded before considering the release of it’s currently-on-hold $3m of development funding. If that is the case, the Dublin body must be dismayed beyond belief: the AGM was scheduled for April 25 and postponed, re-set for May 17 and postponed a second time, re- re-set for May 31, abandoned half-way through and then retrospectively cancelled once it became clear no proper quorum was established: Fijileaks Team

Transcript

The leader of a Fiji political group which claims the same name as the regime-backed party says they will fight the election under a variation of the Fiji First name.

Rear Admiral Frank Bainimarama's Fiji First is now free to campaign and fight the election in September after objections were dismissed and it was formally registered last week.

The rival group was among objectors, saying the Fiji First name is theirs, but the Registrar of Political Parties said the claim lacked evidence.

The group's leader Anit Singh explained to Sally Round the group has been around for years and it was originally called the Girmit Heritage party, but they decided to change its name to Fiji First in 2008 to appeal to more people.

ANIT SINGH: The supervisor of the election at that time, Felicity Heffernan, she guided us through the process of our name change and she met me twice in our office to explain to me and that at that point in time there were no laws in the Electoral Act that strictly applied to applications for a name change so she was to treat our party as a new party and the Gazette notice came out on the 12th of December so it was a due process but it was never declined or disapproved.

SALLY ROUND: But was the process actually completed?

AS:  After our party was advertised in the Gazette, there were objections from the leader of the Fiji Labour Party Mr Chaudhry and the supervisor of elections advised us that he was querying the authenticity of the members and he wants to verify each of the signatures and we made arrangements for me to travel to the rural areas where our members were with the elections office staff and verify each of their signatures which I did and I brought it back and then she [Felicity Heffernan] wrote and informed us that the investigation into your party from the complainant was finalised last week and has no substance. 'I have invited the Fiji Labour Party to discuss the complainant's part of the process and I will show them the newspaper advertisements and radio shows and the process is now complete'. So as far as we are concerned the objections were investigated and completed. She also said in the same email - she wrote that on Tuesday - that on the Friday the notice would be gazetted. In our minds the whole process was finished.

SR: The registrar says there is no evidence of this?

AS: I think the registrar is not telling the whole thing.I don't think it was investigated thoroughly.  They are supposed to acknowledge our application and in that reply of acknowledgment he said a response has been received from the applicant which can be viewed at a pre-arranged time in his office. We are the ones that are complaining. We are complaining about protecting about our intellectual property and he is treating us like we have nothing to complain about. We really feel shortchanged. Where is the discussions of findings or the chance to counter respond? I mean is this strictly applying the letter of the law in this case.

SR: What will you do now?

AS: The position of the registrar seems to be that our name and the Fiji First that Bainimarama has applied for are two different things - is not one and the same. That means our name is still available for us to register. That is what I think he is trying to tell us. I will apply for our name to be reregistered.

SR: So you are talking about the Fiji 1st party with the number in it and not the word as they have - a variation of the Fiji First name?

AS: That's right with a number in it so I think we still have access to our own name.

SR: And will you come back and fight the election? Will Fiji First, under the number one Fiji 1st, will that be a participant in the election in September?

AS: I think we are really looking forward to it. We have always looked forward to the elections. If we are able to register our party name with that party we will be fighting elections, yes for sure. We have got a different logo and a different name.

SR: This is not just a ploy to try and outwit the regime - you really are interested in fighting the election?

AS: We are interested in fighting the elections, yes. I think there has to be a lot of people fighting the elections because this is what democracy is all about.