Girmit Day Again, But Where Is the Audited Account for the 2023 Celebrations?
As Fiji marks another Girmit Day, one question from 2023 refuses to disappear: where is the audited account that the public was promised would be submitted to Parliament?
In May 2024, the then Assistant Minister and Girmit celebrations committee member Sashi Kiran publicly stated on FijiVillage Straight Talk that the accounts for the 2023 Girmit celebrations were being audited by the Office of the Auditor-General and that, once completed, the final approved report would be tabled in Parliament.
Yet here we are in May 2026, commemorating another Girmit Day, and the public is still asking the same basic question: where is the audited report?
This is not a minor administrative matter. It concerns public money allocated for a national celebration funded by taxpayers. Parliament was told in April 2023 that $500,000 had been approved for the Girmit Day celebrations, including an international conference.
That conference became controversial almost immediately because $200,000 was reportedly allocated to the Global Girmit Institute to organise the event at the University of the South Pacific. Questions arose over the role of the Institute, its trustees, and the alleged conflict involving the then Finance Minister Biman Prasad and his wife Rajni Chand, who had been associated with the organisation.
At the time, the public was assured that the accounts would be independently scrutinised. The National Committee itself had been tasked with ensuring that “a financial audit is undertaken in a timely manner” and that all acquittals and expenditure records were properly submitted.
That was the assurance.
But assurances are not audits.
The issue today is not whether Girmit Day should be celebrated. Of course it should. The descendants of the Girmitiyas deserve recognition for the suffering, sacrifice and labour that helped build modern Fiji. The problem is that a Government that speaks endlessly about transparency and accountability cannot continue to evade disclosure over public expenditure linked to one of the country’s most politically symbolic commemorations.
If the Auditor-General completed the audit, where is the report?
Was it tabled in Parliament as promised?
If not, why not?
If the audit was delayed, what caused the delay?
Were there qualifications, discrepancies, or unresolved acquittals?
How much of the original $500,000 allocation was ultimately spent?
How much sponsorship money was received, and from whom?
Who approved the payments?
What procurement process was followed?
How much was paid to the University of the South Pacific, if any, for hosting the conference?
How much was spent on overseas guests, accommodation, entertainment, consultants, publicity and administration?
These are not hostile questions. They are standard public accountability questions that arise whenever taxpayers’ money is used.
The silence has now become more politically damaging than the disclosure itself.
The Coalition Government came to office promising a break from opacity and arbitrary governance. Yet on this matter, it has behaved exactly like the governments it once criticised. The public has been asked to trust verbal explanations, selective spreadsheets and media statements instead of being shown a properly audited public document.
Even more troubling is the passage of time. One Girmit celebration followed another. Speeches were delivered. Wreaths were laid. Tributes were paid to the Girmitiyas. Millions of words were spoken about history, dignity, sacrifice and justice.
But the audited account for the very first Coalition-era Girmit celebration still appears absent from the public domain.
That contradiction matters.
Girmit history itself was a story of contracts, records, wages, ships, registers and accountability. The colonial state documented the Girmitiyas obsessively. Every labourer had a number. Every voyage had a manifest. Every plantation recorded labour, punishment and pay. Ironically, 147 years later, independent Fiji still cannot seem to produce a complete audited account for a modern state-sponsored Girmit celebration.
This is why the matter refuses to die.
The issue is no longer only financial. It is symbolic. A Government that invokes Girmit memory while failing to publicly account for Girmit expenditure risks turning commemoration into political theatre.
The Office of the Auditor-General should therefore clarify whether the audit was completed and whether the report exists. Parliament should also clarify whether any such report was ever formally tabled.
And if no audit has yet been finalised, then the public deserves to know why promises made in 2024 remain unfulfilled in 2026.
Because accountability delayed eventually becomes accountability denied.
As Fiji marks another Girmit Day, one question from 2023 refuses to disappear: where is the audited account that the public was promised would be submitted to Parliament?
In May 2024, the then Assistant Minister and Girmit celebrations committee member Sashi Kiran publicly stated on FijiVillage Straight Talk that the accounts for the 2023 Girmit celebrations were being audited by the Office of the Auditor-General and that, once completed, the final approved report would be tabled in Parliament.
Yet here we are in May 2026, commemorating another Girmit Day, and the public is still asking the same basic question: where is the audited report?
This is not a minor administrative matter. It concerns public money allocated for a national celebration funded by taxpayers. Parliament was told in April 2023 that $500,000 had been approved for the Girmit Day celebrations, including an international conference.
That conference became controversial almost immediately because $200,000 was reportedly allocated to the Global Girmit Institute to organise the event at the University of the South Pacific. Questions arose over the role of the Institute, its trustees, and the alleged conflict involving the then Finance Minister Biman Prasad and his wife Rajni Chand, who had been associated with the organisation.
At the time, the public was assured that the accounts would be independently scrutinised. The National Committee itself had been tasked with ensuring that “a financial audit is undertaken in a timely manner” and that all acquittals and expenditure records were properly submitted.
That was the assurance.
But assurances are not audits.
The issue today is not whether Girmit Day should be celebrated. Of course it should. The descendants of the Girmitiyas deserve recognition for the suffering, sacrifice and labour that helped build modern Fiji. The problem is that a Government that speaks endlessly about transparency and accountability cannot continue to evade disclosure over public expenditure linked to one of the country’s most politically symbolic commemorations.
If the Auditor-General completed the audit, where is the report?
Was it tabled in Parliament as promised?
If not, why not?
If the audit was delayed, what caused the delay?
Were there qualifications, discrepancies, or unresolved acquittals?
How much of the original $500,000 allocation was ultimately spent?
How much sponsorship money was received, and from whom?
Who approved the payments?
What procurement process was followed?
How much was paid to the University of the South Pacific, if any, for hosting the conference?
How much was spent on overseas guests, accommodation, entertainment, consultants, publicity and administration?
These are not hostile questions. They are standard public accountability questions that arise whenever taxpayers’ money is used.
The silence has now become more politically damaging than the disclosure itself.
The Coalition Government came to office promising a break from opacity and arbitrary governance. Yet on this matter, it has behaved exactly like the governments it once criticised. The public has been asked to trust verbal explanations, selective spreadsheets and media statements instead of being shown a properly audited public document.
Even more troubling is the passage of time. One Girmit celebration followed another. Speeches were delivered. Wreaths were laid. Tributes were paid to the Girmitiyas. Millions of words were spoken about history, dignity, sacrifice and justice.
But the audited account for the very first Coalition-era Girmit celebration still appears absent from the public domain.
That contradiction matters.
Girmit history itself was a story of contracts, records, wages, ships, registers and accountability. The colonial state documented the Girmitiyas obsessively. Every labourer had a number. Every voyage had a manifest. Every plantation recorded labour, punishment and pay. Ironically, 147 years later, independent Fiji still cannot seem to produce a complete audited account for a modern state-sponsored Girmit celebration.
This is why the matter refuses to die.
The issue is no longer only financial. It is symbolic. A Government that invokes Girmit memory while failing to publicly account for Girmit expenditure risks turning commemoration into political theatre.
The Office of the Auditor-General should therefore clarify whether the audit was completed and whether the report exists. Parliament should also clarify whether any such report was ever formally tabled.
And if no audit has yet been finalised, then the public deserves to know why promises made in 2024 remain unfulfilled in 2026.
Because accountability delayed eventually becomes accountability denied.
Documents above appear to show that the Government allocated $500,000 for the 2023 Girmit commemorations, yet only $255,308.76 in government funding was reportedly utilised. The report also claimed that an additional $125,000 was raised through sponsorship, bringing the total expenditure to $380,308.76.
The obvious question therefore arose: what happened to the remaining public funds?
According to the breakdown contained in the report, the single largest allocation was $200,000 for the “Global Girmit Institute & Conference Expenses”. Another $50,000 reportedly went directly from sponsors to the SCC venue hire. Various committee and council expenses totalled $22,778.83, while media and livestreaming consumed $23,375. Venue hire and setup accounted for $11,722.80, dance and drama groups received $10,099.58, the Fiji Museum was allocated $9,677.79, and food and beverages amounted to $8,300.
A further $44,354.76 was listed under the vague and highly elastic category of “Other administration and setup”.
That final category alone demanded scrutiny. Public accountability required specificity, not broad accounting labels capable of concealing virtually any expenditure.
The sponsorship table also raised important questions. Vodafone Fiji Limited reportedly contributed $50,000, with $30,000 directed to the SCC and $20,000 to the Ministry of Finance. BSP allegedly contributed $20,000 entirely to the Ministry of Finance, while other sponsors included Zar Logistics, Precision Pacific Construction Ltd, Unit Trust of Fiji, Post Fiji, Vision Investments Limited, and Tour Managers.
The total sponsorship figure in the second table amounted to $125,500, yet the summary table above referred to sponsorship of $125,000. While a $500 discrepancy might appear minor, inconsistencies in financial reporting often became significant precisely because they suggested inadequate reconciliation or poor accounting controls.
More fundamentally, however, the report did not appear to answer the central accountability issue confronting taxpayers and descendants of Girmitiyas alike: where was the independently audited account repeatedly promised to the public?
The obvious question therefore arose: what happened to the remaining public funds?
According to the breakdown contained in the report, the single largest allocation was $200,000 for the “Global Girmit Institute & Conference Expenses”. Another $50,000 reportedly went directly from sponsors to the SCC venue hire. Various committee and council expenses totalled $22,778.83, while media and livestreaming consumed $23,375. Venue hire and setup accounted for $11,722.80, dance and drama groups received $10,099.58, the Fiji Museum was allocated $9,677.79, and food and beverages amounted to $8,300.
A further $44,354.76 was listed under the vague and highly elastic category of “Other administration and setup”.
That final category alone demanded scrutiny. Public accountability required specificity, not broad accounting labels capable of concealing virtually any expenditure.
The sponsorship table also raised important questions. Vodafone Fiji Limited reportedly contributed $50,000, with $30,000 directed to the SCC and $20,000 to the Ministry of Finance. BSP allegedly contributed $20,000 entirely to the Ministry of Finance, while other sponsors included Zar Logistics, Precision Pacific Construction Ltd, Unit Trust of Fiji, Post Fiji, Vision Investments Limited, and Tour Managers.
The total sponsorship figure in the second table amounted to $125,500, yet the summary table above referred to sponsorship of $125,000. While a $500 discrepancy might appear minor, inconsistencies in financial reporting often became significant precisely because they suggested inadequate reconciliation or poor accounting controls.
More fundamentally, however, the report did not appear to answer the central accountability issue confronting taxpayers and descendants of Girmitiyas alike: where was the independently audited account repeatedly promised to the public?
