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FNFP-Westin-Governance Crisis: Questions Surrounding Adish Naidu’s Oversight Role and Biman Prasad’s Appointment Decisions as calls grow for public inquiry. We endorse based on 'Westin Refurbishment REPORT'

28/5/2026

The Westin Governance Crisis: Questions Surrounding Adish Naidu’s Oversight Role and Biman Prasad’s Appointment Decisions

The Report noted that Marriott’s evolving requirements, including luxury bure rebuilds, lagoon pools, covered walkways, and enlarged back-of-house facilities, continued to be incorporated into the redevelopment even as project costs escalated significantly and delivery timelines moved further away from original expectations. Concerns were raised that governance oversight may have failed to adequately distinguish between essential refurbishment requirements and aspirational luxury enhancements associated with Marriott branding expectations.

The sacked FNFP Board Member Adish Naidu’s role within the governance structure overseeing the Westin redevelopment project emerged as a significant issue during the preparation of the internal project assessment and review process.

Naidu’s technical and construction background reportedly formed a central basis for his appointment to the FNPF Board by then Finance Minister Biman Prasad. That expertise subsequently positioned him as one of the most influential figures involved in overseeing major development projects undertaken by FNPF and its subsidiary hotel entities.

Beyond his appointment to the FNPF Board, Naidu was also appointed by Board Chairman Daksesh Patel as Chairman of the Hotel Board, thereby giving him substantial oversight responsibility for the Westin redevelopment and FNPF’s broader hotel investment portfolio.

Naidu also sat on the Project Control Group, the body tasked with monitoring project implementation, reviewing commercial decisions, assessing project risks, and maintaining governance oversight throughout the refurbishment works.

As the only Board member understood to possess substantial technical and construction expertise, other Board members and senior management reportedly relied heavily on his assessments and recommendations regarding procurement structures, project delivery strategies, contractor arrangements, and scope variations. That reliance became particularly significant during the approval process for Fletcher Construction’s controversial cost-plus contracting arrangement in April 2024.

According to the project assessment, Naidu appeared to have played an important role in supporting or endorsing the approval of the cost-plus structure proposed by Fletcher Construction despite concerns reportedly raised by legal advisers and governance stakeholders regarding the risks inherent in such arrangements.

The review noted that legal advice had cautioned against proceeding under a cost-plus model because of the absence of pricing certainty, incomplete project designs, weak cost controls, and the potentially significant financial exposure such a structure created for FNPF. Nevertheless, the arrangement proceeded.

Given Naidu’s technical expertise and senior governance positions, the report questioned whether sufficient scrutiny had been applied to the contractor’s proposals and to the steadily expanding project scope. The assessment observed that despite repeated additions to Marriott’s scope requirements, there appeared to have been limited challenge or resistance regarding the commercial prudence, necessity, or affordability of those enhancements.

The report further noted that Marriott’s evolving requirements, including luxury bure rebuilds, lagoon pools, covered walkways, and enlarged back-of-house facilities, continued to be incorporated into the redevelopment even as project costs escalated significantly and delivery timelines moved further away from original expectations. Concerns were raised that governance oversight may have failed to adequately distinguish between essential refurbishment requirements and aspirational luxury enhancements associated with Marriott branding expectations.

Additional concerns were also reportedly raised regarding the perceived closeness between Naidu and senior Marriott hotel management during critical periods of project decision-making.

The report observed that Marriott representatives regularly hosted and entertained Naidu at the hotel while major commercial and governance decisions concerning the redevelopment were being considered. Although the assessment reportedly stopped short of making any formal finding of impropriety, it nevertheless suggested that such perceptions created legitimate questions concerning governance independence, objectivity, and conflict-management protocols within the project structure.

Ultimately, the assessment suggested that the governance breakdown was not attributable solely to contractor performance issues or Marriott’s evolving scope demands. Rather, it implied that those entrusted with technical oversight and fiduciary responsibility may have failed to impose sufficient commercial discipline, governance challenge, and accountability during key stages of the redevelopment process.

The report further suggested that the combination of weak governance controls, expanding project scope, inadequate cost discipline, and the approval of high-risk procurement arrangements contributed significantly to what became one of the most serious cost-escalation and project-management crises faced by FNPF in recent years.

Within that broader context, the assessment implied that Naidu’s influence within the governance structure, together with questions surrounding the adequacy of oversight exercised during the redevelopment process, formed an important aspect of the wider governance failures identified in the review.

THE WESTIN QUESTIONS: BIMAN PRASAD, THE FNPF BOARD, ADISH NAIDU — AND WHAT PARLIAMENT WAS NOT TOLD

The Fiji National Provident Fund’s 2025 Annual Report has now confirmed what many had long suspected: the massive redevelopment of the Westin Denarau did not simply proceed as a routine hotel refurbishment project. It expanded in scope, required further injections of pension-member funds, encountered delays extending into 2026, and required loan moratoriums while the hotel remained closed.

Yet throughout this period, one central political figure remained at the apex of Fiji’s financial and institutional architecture: the former Finance Minister Biman Prasad.

The question now confronting the country is not whether Fiji should invest in tourism assets. The question is whether the governance, transparency and oversight surrounding the Westin redevelopment met the standard expected when billions in compulsory retirement savings are involved.

For months, Parliament and the public were given broad assurances about the strength of FNPF’s hotel portfolio. However, buried inside the Fund’s own annual report are disclosures that raise serious governance questions about the redevelopment itself, the role of the FNPF Board, and what exactly the Minister responsible for FNPF knew during the project’s escalation.

The Report's Own Admissions

The 2025 FNPF Annual Report openly acknowledges that the Westin redevelopment materially expanded during the project life cycle. According to the report: “Throughout 2024, additional project scope was introduced to further enhance the guest experience and elevate the property to align with the latest Westin brand standards. These value additions have extended the overall project completion timeline to 2026.”

The report further states that “practical completion” is now targeted for February 2026.
This is not an insignificant language. “Additional project scope” is often the polite corporate phrase used when major redevelopment variations, redesigns, additions or cost escalations occur after the commencement of a project.

The report also confirms that FNPF injected another $45 million into Farleigh Limited, the holding company associated with the Westin redevelopment, “for the upgrade and refurbishment of the resort.”

Simultaneously, the financial statements disclose that the Westin remained closed and that moratoriums on loan repayments had been granted.

In ordinary terms, this means the project was still not generating operational income while financing obligations were effectively being deferred.

The Biman Prasad Question

At the centre of this debate sits Biman Prasad. As Finance Minister, he was not merely another politician commenting from the sidelines. Under the FNPF governance structure, Board appointments are made by the Minister of Finance. The Fund itself states in its report that Board members are appointed by the Minister after satisfying fit-and-proper requirements.

That creates a direct political and institutional connection between the Minister and the governance structure supervising the Westin redevelopment. This does not automatically mean Biman Prasad approved every project decision personally.

But it does mean legitimate public-interest questions arise:

When was the Minister informed that the redevelopment scope had materially expanded?
When did he become aware additional funding injections would be required?
Was Cabinet informed?
Was the Reserve Bank of Fiji informed of the revised risk exposure?
Were independent reassessments undertaken after the project timeline extended?
Did Parliament receive the full picture when questions about FNPF hotel investments were raised?

These are not hostile questions. They are governance questions. FNPF is not a private family investment fund. It is Fiji’s compulsory national retirement institution.

The Parliamentary Debate

The controversy intensified after public criticism emerged concerning the scale and cost of FNPF’s hotel refurbishments and redevelopment projects. Biman Prasad reportedly defended the investments in Parliament, pointing to the profitability and long-term value of FNPF’s tourism portfolio. The annual report itself attempts to support that argument by highlighting strong dividend returns, rising hotel valuations and post-pandemic tourism recovery.

According to the report, FNPF’s hotel portfolio generated approximately 40 per cent of dividend income from the Fund’s major equity investments. The report further claims the hotel portfolio contributed significantly to fair-value gains and that the overall enterprise value of the hospitality assets increased substantially.

That is the defence. But the counter-question remains equally important: If the project remained entirely within expectations, why were additional project variations introduced, timelines extended, new capital injected, and loan moratoriums granted? Those are not normally indicators of a project proceeding exactly according to original projections.

The Adish Naidu Dimension

The annual report also places Adish Naidu squarely within the governance structure overseeing FNPF’s hospitality operations. The report identifies him as an FNPF Board Director, Chair of hotel subsidiary boards, and a member associated with major architectural and project management experience through Yellow Architects. That becomes politically explosive given the separate “Adish Naidugate” controversy already surrounding FNPF procurement governance and conflict-of-interest concerns.

Fijileaks had earlier revealed allegations involving tender conflicts linked to the Grantham Plaza warehouse proposal, questions surrounding NAL Engineers and Pola Designs, and concerns about whether Naidu adequately disclosed or managed overlapping professional relationships.

Against that backdrop, critics may now ask: Was Adish Naidu involved in oversight discussions concerning the Westin redevelopment? Did he participate in strategic project governance decisions? Was he involved in reviewing redesigns, variations or redevelopment strategy? Were any entities associated with him involved directly or indirectly in any part of the redevelopment process? Did he recuse himself from any decisions?

At present, the annual report itself does not allege wrongdoing by Naidu. Nor does it disclose any conflict findings regarding the Westin project. But the governance overlap is now undeniable.

The Missing Figures

Perhaps the most striking feature of the annual report is not what it says but what it does not say. Nowhere does the report clearly disclose the original approved redevelopment budget, the revised project budget, the value of variation orders, total cost escalation, financing restructuring details, contractor claims, delay penalties, or updated projected return-on-investment calculations.

Instead, the public is given broad strategic language about “long-term value creation,” “brand standards,” and “future returns.” That may satisfy marketing objectives. It does not necessarily satisfy governance transparency.

To be fair, the Fund advances a coherent strategic case for the redevelopment. The Board and management argue that Fiji’s tourism recovery remains strong, premium hospitality assets are appreciating, the Westin redevelopment will strengthen long-term returns, and staged reopening plans may generate revenue before full completion. The report also stresses the importance of maintaining international brand standards associated with Westin and InterContinental operations.

From a commercial perspective, there is logic to that argument. But pension-fund investing carries a different standard of accountability than ordinary speculative property development. When projects expand, delays occur, and financing conditions are adjusted, transparency becomes even more important, not less.

Ultimately, the Westin debate is no longer merely about a hotel. It has become a test of public-sector governance, ministerial accountability, Board oversight, procurement transparency, and how Fiji’s largest retirement institution manages risk using workers’ compulsory savings.

The FNPF Annual Report has now confirmed enough to justify deeper public scrutiny. The remaining question is whether Parliament, and the people whose retirement savings funded the redevelopment, will receive the full story.

*MP BIMAN PRASAD responded to the growing controversy over the escalating cost of the Westin redevelopment by arguing in Parliament that the project had to be viewed “in context”, stressing that the resort was originally acquired by the Fiji National Provident Fund during the previous FijiFirst government in 2017. Rather than directly addressing the sharp increase in projected costs, reportedly rising from about $90 million to around $230 million, Prasad suggested that deeper issues connected to the project’s origins, structure, and financial implications would eventually emerge. His response appeared aimed at shifting part of the political and governance responsibility back onto decisions made under the former FFP administration, while also defending the broader performance of Fiji National Provident Fund amid mounting parliamentary scrutiny over governance, procurement oversight, and protection of members’ retirement savings.

The Unanswered $82,000 Question: Adish Naidu Yet to Explain if Sheraton Conference Debt Has Been Cleared

*ADISH Naidu is yet to publicly explain whether the outstanding Sheraton conference bill has in fact been settled, either personally, through the Fiji Architects Association, or by the sponsors whose names were associated with the event. Equally unclear is whether the FNPF-owned Sheraton Hotel eventually recovered the alleged debt in full or whether any concessions, waivers, or internal arrangements were made given Naidu’s simultaneous position as an FNPF Board member and Chairman of the Sheraton Hotel Board at the time. In the absence of a clear public explanation, questions continue to linger over governance, transparency, and whether proper conflict-of-interest disclosures were made when the conference arrangements were negotiated and signed.

FCCC Research Paper Controversy Deepens: JOEL Abraham, Akeneta Vonoyauyau, SEEMA NARAYAN, and the Unanswered Questions Over Another FCCC-APAEA article. Mrs Narayan is the wife of Paresh Narayan

26/5/2026

Seema Narayan

Akeneta Vonoyauyau

At present, there is still no public evidence that Professor Seema Narayan personally received payment connected to the inflation paper she co-authored with Joel Abraham and Akeneta Vonoyauyau. The paper itself contains no funding disclosure identifying individual remuneration. However, once her husband Paresh Narayan himself confirmed that the FCCC-APAEA arrangement involved “fees and compensation”, the public-interest questions inevitably widens beyond a single paper or a single co-author.
Biman Prasad is listed as Adjunct Professor at Monash University

Paresh Narayan

The FCCC Research Paper Controversy Deepens: Joel Abraham, Akeneta Vonoyauyau, Seema Narayan, and the Unanswered Questions Over the $200,000 Research Arrangement

The controversy surrounding the Fijian Competition and Consumer Commission’s research partnerships has deepened further following the publication of another FCCC-linked academic paper involving FCCC officials Joel Abraham and Akeneta Vonoyauyau together with Professor Seema Wati Narayan of Monash University, the wife of economist Professor Paresh Narayan.

The paper, titled “Do Price Controlled Basic Food Items Affect Inflation in Fiji?”, was published in 2023 in the Bulletin of Monetary Economics and Banking. It examined whether FCCC-controlled prices on staple imported food items such as potatoes, onions, and garlic affected inflation in Fiji between 2019 and 2022.

The authors concluded that price controls on those food items did not significantly contribute to inflation and argued that such controls helped soften inflationary pressures in Fiji.

At one level, there is nothing inherently improper about academic collaboration between regulators and external researchers. Governments, regulators, and universities frequently work together on policy-oriented research internationally.

But the Fiji controversy is no longer simply about ordinary academic publication.

It is now about governance, procurement, transparency, institutional independence, and the increasingly visible overlap between FCCC officials, Monash University -l inked academics, and politically connected public figures.

The debate intensified after Paresh Narayan responded publicly to questions raised by Fijileaks concerning the FCCC’s research arrangements and the approximately FJ$200,000 reportedly paid by the FCCC under a research Memorandum of Understanding involving the Asia-Pacific Applied Economics Association (APAEA).

Narayan defended the arrangement vigorously. He argued that the FCCC possessed substantial quantities of raw economic data but lacked sufficient in-house technical capability to fully analyse it; the APAEA was therefore engaged to provide econometric expertise, statistical analysis, and policy research support; the work resulted in ten research papers and public policy presentations; and the collaboration was part of a broader “knowledge economy” initiative rather than secretive or politically motivated activity.

Narayan also bluntly defended the payments themselves, stating that “research is not free” and that the MoU specifically contemplated “fees and compensation arrangements” for the work undertaken. That statement is critical because it confirms that the FCCC-funded research programme involved paid arrangements.

What remains unclear, however, is who exactly received payment. Narayan’s explanation did not specify whether payments were made directly to APAEA institutionally; whether individual academics were paid separately; whether consultancy fees or honoraria were issued; whether Monash University staff participated in a paid capacity; or whether any serving public officials benefited financially from the arrangement.

That uncertainty becomes more politically sensitive because the controversy already involved another FCCC-linked paper co-authored by former Finance Minister Biman Prasad, Paresh Narayan, and Joel Abraham concerning the effectiveness of FCCC price-control measures.

That earlier paper became controversial because Biman Prasad was the sitting Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister at the time; Joel Abraham was chief executive of the FCCC; and the paper effectively defended the effectiveness of FCCC regulatory intervention in the economy.

Critics argued that the issue was not necessarily illegality but institutional proximity. Independent regulators are expected not only to act independently but also to maintain visible distance from political actors whose policies they regulate or support.

The appearance of this second FCCC-linked paper involving Joel Abraham, Akeneta Vonoyauyau, and Seema Narayan therefore broadens the controversy considerably. The public now sees what appears to be a recurring network involving FCCC officials; Monash-linked academics; APAEA collaborations; and politically connected co-authors.

That naturally raises further questions: Was the FCCC repeatedly using the same interconnected academic network for taxpayer-funded research? Were procurement processes followed? Were competing researchers or institutions considered? Did the FCCC Board approve the arrangements? Was Parliament informed? And were all financial relationships fully disclosed?

The issue is not helped by the fact that FCCC data itself formed the basis of the research. The paper expressly states that the food-price information used in the inflation analysis came from FCCC field data collections.

Opposition criticism in Parliament focused precisely on this issue: why taxpayer-funded data and regulatory research were being published primarily under the names of individual academics and officials rather than institutionally under the FCCC itself.

According to reports from the Parliamentary Standing Committee hearing, FCCC chief executive Senikavika Jiuta acknowledged that approximately $200,000 had been spent on consultancy and professional fees associated with the production of ten research papers.

Jiuta reportedly accepted concerns that future publications should more clearly identify the FCCC as the institutional source of the research and data.

That concession is important because it implicitly recognises the central governance issue: who was actually producing the work, who owned the underlying data, and who financially benefited from the arrangement?

At present, there is still no public evidence that Professor Seema Narayan personally received payment connected to the inflation paper she co-authored with Joel Abraham and Akeneta Vonoyauyau. The paper itself contains no funding disclosure identifying individual remuneration.

However, once Narayan himself confirmed that the FCCC-APAEA arrangement involved “fees and compensation”, the public-interest questions inevitably widened beyond a single paper or a single co-author.

The controversy now centres on transparency itself.

Who was paid?

How much?

For what exact services?

Under what approvals?

And where should the line be drawn between independent academic research and state-funded policy advocacy involving regulators, ministers, and politically connected academics?

Those questions remain unanswered.

From Fijileaks Archive, 18 November 2023

Professor Vijay Naidu claims one of the two members of the review committee from Monash University, PARESH NARAYAN, is Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Biman Prasad's former student. Interestingly, it was in November 2023 when the Inflation article became available online.

Professor SEEMA NARAYAN is the Deputy Director of Pacific Actions for Climate Transitions (PACT) a joint climate change research centre of Fiji National University and Monash University

Professor Seema Narayan is the Deputy Director of Pacific Actions for Climate Transitions (PACT) a joint climate change research centre of Fiji National University and Monash University. She is working with stakeholders to develop and implement research and capacity building programs for the climate change vulnerable Pacific Island nations. Professor Seema Narayan is an interdisciplinary researcher and economist. She is originally from Fiji, is a University of South Pacific alumni and has worked as an economist at the Reserve Bank of Fiji prior to moving to Australia. She completed her PhD from the Monash University in 2009 and has worked as an educator and researcher at RMIT in Melbourne for more than 13 years or so and prior to this accumulated significant teaching and research experience working at various other universities including Monash University, Griffith University and the Central Queensland University. She has taught undergraduate and MBA courses in Economics and Finance to a diverse student cohorts. She has published more than 150 articles in internationally recognised peer-reviewed journals. A good part of her research work tracks some of key environmental and climate change issues. In the area of climate change her work tracks energy transition, funding of energy transition as well as the implications of fossil fuels on the economic and financial systems, in the Pacific and beyond. She also works in the areas of economic growth and other related areas of health economics, trade and financial markets developments.

“Research Is Not Free”: Monash University's Paresh Narayan Defends FCCC 'Research Paper'. Questions Remain Over Payments, Governance, and BIMAN PRASAD's ROLE and the $200,000 forked out by the FCCC

23/5/2026

'Research Is Not Free'. Paresh Narayan’s response to Fijileaks is, in essence, a defence of the institutional legitimacy, academic integrity, and contractual basis of the FCCC - APAEA collaboration. His explanation attempts to rebut Premila Kumar’s insinuation that the research project was improper, politically motivated, or an unjustified use of public resources.

The response can be broken down into five core arguments.

First, Narayan says the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) existed because the Fijian Competition and Consumer Commission possessed large quantities of raw data but lacked sufficient internal technical and research capacity to fully analyse and convert that data into policy-oriented research.

According to him, the role of the Asia-Pacific Applied Economics Association was therefore to provide technical expertise in data formatting, organisation, statistical analysis, and policy research writing.

This is an important clarification because it reframes the collaboration not as a casual academic exercise but as an outsourced policy research arrangement designed to support “evidence-based policy-making”. In regulatory economics, this is not unusual. Many regulators and central banks collaborate with universities, think tanks, or economic associations because they lack in-house econometric capability or research manpower.

Second, Narayan stresses that the outputs were public-facing rather than secretive. He says 10 research papers were produced and presented in stakeholder forums, and that the purpose was dissemination, scrutiny, policy discussion, and feedback. He further argues that publication was intended to contribute to a “knowledge economy” by making the research freely available to policymakers, academics, students, and the public.

That point is strategically important because one of the implicit criticisms raised publicly was whether FCCC resources were being used for private academic branding or politically aligned advocacy. Narayan counters this by portraying the initiative as transparent and publicly accessible.

Third, he directly addresses the authorship controversy. His central argument is that all individuals who made substantive intellectual contributions had to be acknowledged as co-authors. He argues that excluding contributors would itself breach academic ethics and potentially amount to plagiarism.

This is a strong defence from an academic standpoint. In scholarly publishing, co-authorship is normally justified where contributors materially participate in conceptualisation, methodology, analysis, interpretation, drafting, or supervision of the research.

If the former Finance Minister Biman Chand Prasad genuinely participated substantively in the research process, then listing him as co-author would not, in itself, violate academic norms.

However, this does not entirely eliminate the governance concern that critics are raising.

The real issue being debated publicly is less about authorship and more about institutional proximity and regulatory independence.

Critics are essentially asking the following questions:

Was it appropriate for a serving Finance Minister to co-author papers with the head of a state regulator (Joel Abraham) whose policy performance and regulatory interventions affected the national economy?
Could the collaboration create the appearance that the regulator was too closely aligned with the political executive?
Did the arrangement blur the line between independent policy evaluation and government policy advocacy?

Narayan’s response partially addresses the academic side of the controversy, but only indirectly addresses the institutional independence question.

Fourth, he defends the payment structure. He states bluntly that “research is not free” and that the MoU explicitly provided for fees and compensation because the work required funding, expertise, analytical capability, and time.

That is also institutionally normal. Policy research consultancies, commissioned studies, and academic partnerships routinely involve payment arrangements. The key governance questions therefore become:

Were procurement and approval processes properly followed?
Were the payments proportionate and transparent?
Was there adequate separation between regulator funding and political influence?
Were taxpayers clearly informed of the arrangement?

Those are governance and accountability questions rather than purely academic ones.
Finally, Narayan attempts to place the FCCC arrangement within a broader regional context by saying APAEA conducts similar joint policy research with 10 central banks and multiple policy institutions across the Asia-Pacific region. This is designed to normalise the collaboration and show that such partnerships are standard practice internationally.

Overall, Narayan’s response is persuasive on several technical points:

collaborative policy research is common;
outsourced analytical work is normal where regulators lack capacity;
co-authorship itself is not inherently improper;
publication and dissemination are legitimate policy objectives;
funded research partnerships are standard institutional practice.

But his response does not completely extinguish the broader public-interest concern.

The unresolved question is not simply whether the work was academically legitimate. It is whether the visible closeness between a serving Finance Minister and the head of an independent regulator created an appearance problem regarding regulatory autonomy and policy neutrality.

That distinction is likely to remain at the centre of the public debate.

Did Biman Chand Prasad Receive Payment Under the FCCC–APAEA Research MoU? Questions Arise After Parmesh Narayan Says “Research Is Not Free”

Based on Paresh Narayan’s response alone, there is no explicit confirmation that Biman Prasad personally received payment.

However, Narayan does make several statements that naturally raise that question. He says that the MoU “clearly specifies the agreed fees and compensation arrangements associated with undertaking this work”; research required “funding, technical expertise, analytical capability, and substantial time commitment”; and authorship reflected substantive contributions.

What he does not clarify is who exactly was paid; whether payments went to individuals, APAEA institutionally, or external consultants; whether Biman Prasad personally received consultancy fees, honoraria, research allowances, or any other compensation; and whether he participated in a paid capacity while simultaneously serving as Finance Minister. That distinction matters.

If the payments were made solely to APAEA or external technical researchers, and Biman Prasad merely participated academically without remuneration, that is one scenario.

If, however, a sitting Finance Minister personally received payment under an MoU funded through a statutory regulator operating within his own governmental sphere, that would raise significantly more serious governance and conflict-of-interest questions.

The key unresolved issues therefore are: Was Biman Prasad personally remunerated?If yes, in what form? Consultancy fee? Research honorarium? Speaking fee? APAEA allocation?

Moreover, who approved the payments? Were the payments disclosed publicly? Did Cabinet, FCCC Board structures, or procurement rules address the conflict dimension? Did he declare any such income or benefit where legally required?

Narayan’s email to Fijileaks does not answer those questions directly. It only confirms that the MoU contemplated “fees and compensation arrangements” for the research work generally.

Was Biman Chand Prasad paid out of the $200,000, for "Research is NOT Free".

BIMANGATE. The FCCC Paper Controversy: How Much Data Did FCCC, Regulator, Provide? Why Was Biman Prasad Interested in the Subject?

22/5/2026

Fresh questions continue to surround the 2023 academic paper co-authored by former Finance Minister and NFP leader Biman Prasad, FCCC chief executive Joel Abraham, and economist Paresh Kumar Narayan on the effectiveness of FCCC price controls and their relationship to inflation.

The central controversy is no longer merely whether a serving Finance Minister should have co-authored an academic article while in office. The deeper issue now being publicly debated is this: how much underlying FCCC data, institutional research, taxpayer-funded analysis, and regulatory material were made available to the authors, and under what framework?

The matter erupted during the Parliamentary Standing Committee hearing into the FCCC’s 2023–2024 annual report when Opposition MP Premila Kumar questioned why taxpayer-funded research papers carried the names of individual academics and public officials instead of the FCCC itself.

According to FCCC chief executive Senikavika Jiuta, approximately $200,000 in consultancy and professional fees covered the work of a chief economist and the publication of ten research papers. She acknowledged concerns that had internally arisen over attribution and accepted that future publications should recognise the FCCC as the institutional source of the data and research.

That admission has intensified scrutiny.

The paper itself examined whether FCCC price-control interventions helped suppress inflationary pressures in Fiji. It effectively defended the utility of state regulatory intervention in the market.

Yet in 2023, Biman Prasad was not merely an outside academic economist. He was Fiji’s sitting Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance. The paper itself identified him in that official capacity.

That immediately raises constitutional, ethical, and governance questions.

Why was the Finance Minister personally interested in co-authoring a scholarly defence of FCCC price-control mechanisms while simultaneously exercising political authority over national economic policy?

Was the paper entirely independent academic work? Or was it, in substance, a policy-validation exercise involving a serving minister and the head of the state regulator whose performance was being evaluated?

Critics argue that the issue is not necessarily illegality but institutional proximity.

Independent regulators are expected not only to act impartially but to maintain visible distance from political actors. When the head of the FCCC co-authors a paper with the Finance Minister defending the regulator’s effectiveness, questions naturally arise about whether the regulator was independently evaluating policy or participating in policy advocacy.

Another unresolved question concerns the nature and extent of the data provided.

Premila Kumar specifically questioned why individuals were receiving academic credit for work based upon information and data sourced from the FCCC and therefore ultimately funded by taxpayers.

Biman Prasad has defended the arrangement, arguing that it is standard international practice for researchers to use government-funded survey data and for outside experts to receive attribution for their contributions. He accused Kumar of politicising normal academic collaboration.

That defence, however, leaves several unanswered questions:

What precise FCCC datasets were supplied?
Were they public datasets or internal regulatory material?
Did the authors receive privileged access unavailable to other researchers?
Was there any memorandum, approval process, or institutional disclosure governing the collaboration?
Were FCCC staff involved in preparing statistical analysis, econometric modelling, or drafting sections of the paper?
Was Parliament or Cabinet aware that the sitting Finance Minister was co-authoring research alongside the head of an independent regulator?

These questions become politically more sensitive because the controversy does not exist in isolation.

Prasad’s opponents view the paper against the backdrop of the wider allegations already surrounding him: statutory declaration controversies, undeclared directorship allegations, Lotus Construction (Fiji) Ltd, Platinum Hotels & Resorts Ltd, land declaration disputes, and the aborted FICAC charging process of September 2024.

Consequently, what might otherwise have been treated as routine academic collaboration has now become part of a broader national debate about transparency, institutional independence, and the boundaries between political office and state authority.

The issue ultimately goes beyond one journal article.

At stake is a larger democratic principle: whether independent regulators can maintain public confidence when their leadership publicly collaborates with serving ministers in defending or validating government policy outcomes.

In mature democracies, such collaborations are often accompanied by extensive disclosure requirements concerning funding, institutional involvement, conflicts of interest, access to government data, and declarations of official capacity.

Fiji now finds itself confronting the same questions.

How much FCCC data was actually provided?

Who authorised its use?

And why was the sitting Finance Minister so personally invested in publicly validating the FCCC’s price-control framework in 2023 while holding one of the most powerful economic portfolios in government?

National Federation Party leader and former Finance Minister Professor Biman Prasad has defended the Fijian Competition and Consumer Commission’s practice of acknowledging external contributors in taxpayer-funded research, accusing Opposition MP Premila Kumar of misleading the public for political purposes.

The issue arose during a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Economic Affairs hearing into FCCC’s 2023–2024 annual report, where Ms Kumar questioned why private individuals were credited in FCCC-funded research reports.

Responding to the criticism, Professor Prasad said Ms Kumar’s claims ignored standard international research practices, where government agencies routinely engage academics, experts and independent contributors and publicly acknowledge their input.

“It is normal for researchers to ask for contributions from other experts in their field and their names acknowledged,” Professor Prasad said.

“It is also standard practice for researchers to have access to government-funded survey and data to do their own analysis.”

Professor Prasad said recognising independent researchers and specialists strengthened evidence-based policymaking and improved the credibility and transparency of public research.

“Kumar should know better than to misrepresent something that is common practice globally,” he said.

“Having credible researchers and recognised experts attached to reports strengthens the quality of the work, improves transparency, and gives those findings greater credibility, something especially important for a small country like Fiji where strong, trusted research matters both nationally and on the international stage.”

He also drew comparisons with practices overseas, saying governments such as the United Kingdom openly acknowledge academics and specialists involved in publicly funded research projects.

Professor Prasad took aim at the former FijiFirst government, claiming academic and publication freedoms were heavily restricted during its time in office.

“Perhaps Kumar thinks this is still FijiFirst rule, where credit for everyone’s work went to one person. During that time, of course, she wouldn’t dare question anything that her boss did,” he said.

He said researchers must have access to data and surveys for further analysis and argued that Fiji had moved beyond the restrictive environment that existed previously.

Professor Prasad also accused the Opposition of attempting to politicise ordinary governance and research processes as election season approached.

“With serious global issues such as the oil crisis already placing pressure on ordinary Fijians, political leaders should focus on genuine public concerns rather than creating unnecessary controversy and using the tough global conditions for their own political mileage,” he said.

In Westminster-derived systems, ministers are generally expected to avoid circumstances where public institutions appear to become vehicles for enhancing personal intellectual prestige or political authority. That is especially sensitive where the institution is regulatory; the subject matter concerns government economic management; and the publication reaches conclusions favourable to ongoing state intervention.The optics therefore matter enormously.

The paper may well have been academically genuine. But politically and institutionally, it created the appearance of an unusually close alignment between the state regulator, the government’s economic narrative, and the minister personally.

That is why the controversy is unlikely to disappear merely through arguments that “academics publish papers all the time.” In this case, the concern is not academic publication alone. It is the fusion of scholarship, regulatory authority, and ministerial office into a single state-linked narrative.

The Scholar and the State: Questions Arising From Former FINANCE Minister BIMAN PRASAD’s Academic PAPER While in Office on 'HOW effective are FCCC’s price controlling role and do they lead to inflation?'

21/5/2026

"For supporters of Biman Chand Prasad, the publication demonstrates intellectual engagement and policy seriousness. For critics, it reflects a troubling closeness between political power and state institutions. Both interpretations will continue to collide in the court of public opinion. But one principle remains beyond dispute: in a democracy, public confidence depends not merely upon the absence of corruption, but upon the visible maintenance of institutional independence, transparency, and ethical distance between those who govern and those who regulate."

Joel Abraham

Paresh Narayan

The recent circulation of an academic paper co-authored by the former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Biman Chand Prasad, has once again raised difficult questions about the intersection between public office, academic independence, regulatory governance, and ministerial accountability in Fiji.

The paper, published in 2023 in the Bulletin of Monetary Economics and Banking, was co-authored by Biman Prasad, Paresh Kumar Narayan, and Joel Abraham. The latter was, at the relevant time, Chief Executive of the Fijian Competition and Consumer Commission (FCCC), the very institution whose regulatory interventions formed the subject matter of the study.

The article examined the effectiveness of price control mechanisms in Fiji and argued that government intervention through the FCCC had contributed positively to controlling inflationary pressures in the economy.

At one level, there is nothing extraordinary about an academic publishing scholarly work. Prasad built his public reputation as an economist long before entering frontline politics. He lectured for decades at the University of the South Pacific, wrote extensively on development economics, and cultivated an identity not merely as a politician but as a public intellectual.

Indeed, throughout the Commonwealth, ministers, parliamentarians, central bank governors, and senior public officials frequently write journal articles, policy essays, and scholarly papers while in office. Such engagement can enrich public discourse because it allows policymakers to combine practical experience with academic analysis.

Yet Fiji’s circumstances are neither politically ordinary nor institutionally insulated from controversy.

The publication of the paper has become politically sensitive not because Prasad wrote it, but because of the broader governance questions surrounding his conduct in office, his declaration controversies, his relationships with state institutions, and the involvement of senior public regulators in the publication itself.

The paper expressly identified Prasad in his official capacity as “Deputy Prime Minister & Minister for Finance, Government of Fiji.” In other words, he was not writing merely as a retired academic reflecting privately on economic theory. He was writing as the sitting Finance Minister of Fiji.

That distinction matters.

The issue is not whether ministers are permitted to think, write, or publish. The issue is whether the boundaries between public office, institutional influence, and personal or professional advancement remain sufficiently transparent.

Several legitimate questions therefore arise.

First, was the paper entirely voluntary academic work, or was there remuneration attached to the publication, consultancy, conference participation, or related engagements? If any payments or honoraria were received, were they declared in accordance with applicable parliamentary or ministerial disclosure obligations?

Secondly, what institutional resources were utilised in preparing the paper? Were FCCC personnel, research databases, confidential regulatory material, or government economic information used in a manner that required formal approval or disclosure?

Thirdly, did Joel Abraham’s role as FCCC chief executive create the appearance of institutional self-validation? The paper effectively concluded that FCCC-style regulatory interventions had beneficial effects on inflation management. Critics may reasonably ask whether it is appropriate for the head of a regulator to co-author a paper praising the effectiveness of that regulator while working closely with the serving Finance Minister.

The issue here is not necessarily illegality. It is institutional perception.

Independent regulators are expected not only to act impartially but to be seen to act impartially. When senior regulators publicly co-author papers with serving ministers defending or validating government policy frameworks, the line between independent analysis and policy advocacy can become blurred.

This becomes especially sensitive in Fiji, where independent institutions have repeatedly faced accusations of politicisation over the years, regardless of which political party held office.

Moreover, Prasad’s opponents are unlikely to assess this paper in isolation.

They will place it within a much broader pattern of controversies already surrounding him: allegations concerning statutory declarations under the Political Parties Act, questions relating to undeclared directorships, scrutiny over his shareholding in Lotus Construction (Fiji) Ltd, issues concerning Platinum Hotels & Resorts Ltd, disputes regarding land declarations, and the aborted FICAC charging process of September 2024.

Against that backdrop, even perfectly lawful conduct attracts amplified scrutiny.

One cannot ignore the optics.

A Finance Minister facing continuing legal and political controversies while simultaneously publishing an academic paper endorsing state regulatory intervention alongside the head of a state regulator inevitably invites questions about proximity between political authority and supposedly independent institutions.

None of this necessarily means wrongdoing occurred.

There is, at present, no public evidence that the publication breached any law, parliamentary rule, or ministerial code. Nor is there evidence that the journal publication itself was improper. The Bulletin of Monetary Economics and Banking is a recognised academic publication, and co-authorship between economists and policymakers is commonplace internationally.

But public accountability in democratic systems extends beyond criminality.

Ministers are judged not only by legality but by transparency, propriety, perception, and institutional ethics.

In mature democracies, ministers routinely disclose external speaking fees, consultancy arrangements, academic stipends, research funding, and institutional affiliations precisely because public confidence depends upon openness.

The deeper issue raised by this episode is therefore constitutional rather than academic: where should the boundary lie between the scholar and the state?

Can a serving Finance Minister objectively co-author papers validating government regulatory interventions while simultaneously exercising political authority over economic policy?

Can the head of an independent regulator publicly align himself academically with the political leadership whose policies his institution administers?

Should such collaborations require fuller disclosure to Parliament or the public?

And if no formal rules currently exist governing such relationships, should Fiji begin developing them?

These questions become even more pressing in a political environment where allegations of conflicts of interest, selective accountability, and institutional compromise already dominate national discourse.

In the end, the controversy surrounding the paper is less about economics than about governance culture.

For supporters of Prasad, the publication demonstrates intellectual engagement and policy seriousness. For critics, it reflects a troubling closeness between political power and state institutions.

Both interpretations will continue to collide in the court of public opinion.

But one principle remains beyond dispute: in a democracy, public confidence depends not merely upon the absence of corruption, but upon the visible maintenance of institutional independence, transparency, and ethical distance between those who govern and those who regulate.

The parliamentary criticism focused specifically on the use of taxpayer-funded FCCC research carrying individual names rather than institutional attribution

Parliamentary Standing Committee member Premila Kumar, has questioned the Fiji Competition and Consumer Commission over why taxpayer-funded research papers and publications carried the names of academics and external parties instead of the organisation itself.

During yesterday’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Economic Affairs hearing on FCCC’s 2023–2024 annual report, Kumar raised concerns over consultancy and professional fees of around $200,000 and sought clarification on the work carried out under those payments.

FCCC Chief Executive Officer Senikavika Jiuta told the committee that the funds covered consultancy work by a chief economist who continued working with the organisation after returning to Scotland, as well as the publication of 10 research papers. Kumar then questioned why the names of individuals, including Professor Biman Prasad, Paresh Narine and Joel Abraham, appeared on some of the published papers, despite the work being funded by taxpayers through the FCCC.

She says the research was funded by public money and questioned why individuals were receiving recognition for work based on information and data sourced from the FCCC.

In response, Jiuta acknowledged the concern and said the issue had also been raised internally after she joined the organisation last year.

She says she has been informed that the individuals listed were credited as authors after contributing to and revising the papers, but agreed that future publications should instead recognise the FCCC as the organisation providing the data and research.

Kumar says the matter should be corrected in the interest of transparency and indicated that it could form part of the committee’s recommendations.

From Fijileaks Archive, 8 December 2025

*The Political Parties Act is clear. By 30 days after polling, every candidate must, under Mandatory Post-Election Financial Return - Form 6, file a complete statement of donations and expenditures.

This is the only window in which the public sees what really happened behind the scenes of a campaign. Who funded the candidate? How was the money spent? Were there undisclosed interests, reimbursements, or benefits?

*The law demands this disclosure precisely because the period immediately after an election is politically sensitive. Hidden transactions, repayments, or quiet “thank-you payments” cannot be swept under the rug. The 30-day return is the key safeguard against post-election influence. It is the section that tests a politician’s honesty when the votes are already counted.

*Biman Chand Prasad left the entire section out in his 2023 statutory declaration.

*Why the mandatory pages relating to 'Particulars of Monies Received (as at 13 January 2023, 30th day after polling); "Particulars of Donations", and "Particulars of Expenditure", are missing from Biman Chand Prasad's 2023 statutory declaration, signed by him and witnessed by his lawyer.

Read Prasad, Abraham, Narayan article here

FIRED: Finance Minister Revokes Adish Naidu’s FNPF Board Directorship After ‘Adish Naidugate’ Warehouse Tender Conflict Scandal. FICAC takes over investigation from Fiji Police after Fijileaks hands over Documents

20/5/2026

"The FNPF is not an ordinary commercial body. It is Fiji’s national retirement fund, holding the lifetime savings of thousands of contributors. Procurement processes involving the Fund therefore demand the highest standards of transparency, disclosure, and fiduciary integrity. The removal of Adish Naidu is therefore not merely an administrative reshuffle. It is the first major institutional casualty of the “Adish Naidugate” affair. And it may not be the last."

The political and governance fallout from the “Adish Naidugate” scandal has now culminated in the removal of Adish Naidu from the Fiji National Provident Fund Board.

In a letter dated 19 May 2026, Finance Minister Esrom Immanuel formally revoked Naidu’s appointment as a member of the FNPF Board with immediate effect, following advice from the Reserve Bank of Fiji and pursuant to section 11(5) of the FNPF Act 2011.

The dismissal comes weeks after Fijileaks revealed documentary evidence linking Naidu, while serving as an FNPF Board Director, to a consortium embedded in the controversial Grantham Plaza warehouse consultancy tender process.

The Minister’s letter stated plainly: “Following the advice from the Reserve Bank of Fiji and pursuant to section 11(5) of the FNPF Act 2011, your appointment is hereby revoked with immediate effect.”

The decision marks a dramatic departure for a figure who, until recently, sat at the centre of FNPF investment and procurement oversight while simultaneously allegedly appearing within a tender structure seeking to secure Fund-related work.

The Story That Triggered the Departure

Fijileaks had previously published a detailed chronology of the Grantham Plaza warehouse tender saga, revealing how a consortium involving Pola Designs, Yellow Architects, Green House Engineering, and NAL Civil & Structural Engineers had aligned itself during a live procurement process.

Among the signatories to the Letter of Intent dated 30 June 2025 was Adish Naidu, identified as Director of Yellow Architects.

At the time, Naidu was also serving as an FNPF Board Director.

Internal FNPF governance reviews later concluded that Naidu’s involvement should have been declared as a conflict of interest under the FNPF Act. The review reportedly found:

Naidu had been listed as key personnel in the NAL tender bid;
The bid documents declared no conflict of interest;
The Tender Evaluation Committee had failed to detect the issue during much of the procurement cycle.

By March 2026, internal governance concerns escalated sharply. FNPF eventually halted the engagement process after concluding that proceeding with the tender would create unacceptable governance and conflict risks.

From Public Pressure to Removal

Fijileaks had argued repeatedly that Naidu’s position on the FNPF Board had become “untenable in governance terms” and called upon the Finance Minister to intervene if Naidu refused to resign voluntarily.

That intervention has now arrived.

The dismissal letter suggests that the matter had progressed beyond mere political embarrassment into a formal regulatory concern serious enough to attract Reserve Bank of Fiji advice and ministerial action.

The development also raises a wider question: whether further scrutiny will now extend to other individuals and entities involved in the tender structure and procurement process.

FICAC Investigation Looms

FICAC has now commenced inquiries into aspects of the halted warehouse tender process, including potential failures of disclosure, procurement irregularities, and the handling of conflict declarations.

The central issue remains whether a sitting fiduciary officeholder participated, directly or indirectly, in a procurement structure linked to the institution he was legally bound to govern independently.

The broader implications are profound.

FNPF is not an ordinary commercial body. It is Fiji’s national retirement fund, holding the lifetime savings of thousands of contributors. Procurement processes involving the Fund therefore demand the highest standards of transparency, disclosure, and fiduciary integrity.

The removal of Adish Naidu is therefore not merely an administrative reshuffle.

It is the first major institutional casualty of the “Adish Naidugate” affair.

And it may not be the last.

Editor’s Note: Adish Naidu claimed to Fijileaks that NAL in New Zealand and Pola Designs in Fiji had allegedly “stolen” the Yellow Architects rubber stamp and included his name in their tender bid without his knowledge. Both parties have been “hiding” from Fijileaks despite repeated questions sent to them.

DISMISSED FNPF Director Naidu Now Entangled in $82,000 Sheraton Debt Controversy

The dismissal of Adish Naidu from the Fiji National Provident Fund Board over the “Adish Naidugate” tender conflict scandal has now cast renewed attention on another controversy already swirling around the former Board Director and Fiji Architects Association president.

At the centre of the second dispute is an alleged unpaid debt of approximately $82,000 owed to the FNPF-owned Sheraton Fiji Golf & Beach Resort following the Fiji Architects Association conference hosted at the luxury Denarau property.

Fijileaks had earlier revealed internal correspondence and claims indicating that the Sheraton Hotel had allegedly been pursuing payment from Fiji Architects Association president Adish Naidu and event sponsors after the conference bill reportedly remained outstanding.

The controversy has become even more politically explosive because the Sheraton resort itself falls within the broader FNPF commercial empire.

Critics are now asking whether it was appropriate for a sitting FNPF Board Director to preside over an organisation allegedly owing substantial sums to an FNPF-owned hotel while simultaneously participating in high-level Fund governance.

The issue raises uncomfortable questions about corporate governance, fiduciary obligations, disclosure standards, and reputational conflicts.

Naidu’s removal from the FNPF Board followed advice from the Reserve Bank of Fiji and ministerial action under section 11(5) of the FNPF Act 2011 after the collapse of the Grantham Plaza warehouse consultancy tender process.

That tender became the focus of a major governance scandal after documents revealed Naidu’s alleged involvement in a consultancy consortium connected to the procurement exercise while he remained an FNPF Board Director.

Internal governance concerns reportedly concluded that the situation created a conflict serious enough for the tender process itself to be halted.

Now, attention is shifting to whether the Sheraton conference debt controversy represents merely poor organisational management or whether it forms part of a wider pattern of blurred governance boundaries involving public institutions, professional bodies, and commercial relationships linked to FNPF assets.

The coincidence is politically devastating.

In one controversy, Naidu allegedly appeared inside a consultancy structure linked to an FNPF procurement process.

In the other, he allegedly presided over a professional association facing demands from an FNPF-owned hotel to settle a substantial unpaid conference bill.

Together, the two scandals now threaten to deepen scrutiny not only of Naidu himself but also of the wider governance culture surrounding entities and individuals operating around Fiji’s most powerful statutory fund.

FICAC’s interest in aspects of the warehouse tender affair is therefore unlikely to silence questions surrounding the Sheraton controversy.

Instead, the former FNPF Director ADISH NAIDU may now find himself confronting scrutiny on multiple fronts simultaneously.

www.fijileaks.com/home/the-adish-naidugate-fnpf-board-director-adish-naidu-at-centre-of-undeclared-conflict-that-halted-fnpf-warehouse-tender-he-should-voluntarily-resign-if-not-the-finance-minister-should-ask-him-to-resign

From Fijileaks Archive, 22 April 2026

“THE LETTER OF INTENT QUESTION”: If Adish Naidu Claims His Rubber Stamp Was ‘Stolen’ for the FNFP Warehouse Tender, How Did Sunil Chand Obtain Yellow Architects’ Support Letter for the Nabavatu Tender?

*Adish Naidu told Fijileaks that NAL and Pola Designs allegedly stole Yellow Architects’ rubber stamp and inserted his name into the FNPF warehouse tender documents without his knowledge. However, he has yet to explain how Sunil Chand, the cousin of former Finance Minister Biman Prasad, came to possess and submit a formal Letter of Intent from Yellow Architects in support of the Nabavatu housing tender.

The Lotus Connection: Biman Prasad’s Undeclared Directorships and the 5 September FICAC Drama
Meanwhile, Biman Chand Prasad repeatedly failed to declare in his statutory declarations, from 2014 onwards, that he was a co-director of Lotus Construction (Fiji) Ltd alongside his cousin, Sunil Chand.
FICAC had allegedly been preparing to charge him on 5 September 2024 before the process was disrupted following the arrest and subsequent release of Barbara Malimali after the intervention of prominent Fiji lawyers earlier that morning.

In 2016, his cousin and business partner Sunil Chand transferred another 45% shares to Biman Chand Prasad, making him a 50% shareholder in Lotus Construction (Fiji) Ltd. He did not disclose the transfer of these shares nor disclosed that he was a DIRECTOR of Lotus (Fiji), a company that was building those 28 VILLAS.
In 2016, Biman Prasad and his wife Rajni Kaushal Chand also sold a Suva property to Lotus (Fiji), and in exchange the company paid the Capital Gains Tax, and Mrs Prasad got two villas - again these two villas were not declared in the statutory declarations.

ON A PRAYER AND A WING: NFP leader BIMAN PRASAD heard his STAY Application rejected by the Fiji High Court as he prayed with NZ HINDU Temple devotees. Prasad was excused from appearing in court for ruling

18/5/2026

Fijileaks: Full High Court Analysis to follow as we pursue other charges

From Fijileaks Archive, 14 November 2025

There is credible information suggesting:

long-standing residence in New Zealand;
no known occupation or residence at 152 Sekoula Road during the relevant period;
possible physical absence from Fiji around the transfer date.

This creates reasonable grounds to suspect that the residential particulars recorded in the land-transfer instrument may have been inaccurate or misleading.

Grounds For Reasonable Suspicion

This complaint is not asserting wrongdoing as fact.

It asserts that reasonable suspicion exists, because the following appear inconsistent:

Citizenship and residence

A person who has been a New Zealand citizen since 2008 is unlikely, absent contrary evidence, to have been residing at a family address in Suva on 12 January 2021.

Immigration and travel records

If immigration logs reveal the transferee was not present in Fiji on or near the transfer date, the address listed would be materially false.

Utility and public-record indicators

Residency can be verified or disproven through:

EFL and Water Authority billing records,
FRCS/TIN address records,
Voter registration records,
Tenancy or electoral listings.

Registration requirements

Residential details are required to ensure:

Identity accuracy,
Compliance with land-registration rules,
Compliance with anti-money-laundering (AML/KYC) laws,
Proper tax treatment of transfers.

Any false address compromises the legality and validity of the transaction.

Possible Offences (For FICAC Assessment)

(All listed as possible offences only, not asserted as proven.)

Crimes Act 2009

Section 201: False or misleading information to a public official
Section 256–257: Use of false documents / uttering a false document
Section 325: Obtaining a financial or property advantage by deception
Section 334–340: General fraud and deception offences
Section 66: Aiding, abetting, or conspiring to commit an offence

FICAC Act

Providing false information to a public body
Abuse of office (if a public officer participated)

Land/Title laws

Supplying false particulars in a transfer instrument
Any offence under the Registration of Titles Act relating to fraudulent registration

AML/KYC rules

Providing false identification details for a transaction involving real property

This list is not exhaustive; it outlines the statutory basis for FICAC jurisdiction.

Why The Matter Merits Formal Investigation

The case involves a public official (the grantor) and his immediate family member.
The information relates to a registered land transfer, a process requiring strict truthfulness.
The suspected false information concerns a simple, binary fact: whether the transferee resided at 152 Sekoula Road in early 2021.
Verification is straightforward and documentary.

The public interest is clear: the integrity of land records, public disclosures, and anti-corruption processes depends on the accuracy of information provided to government authorities.

Request for Action to Fiji Police Force and FICAC

Open a formal investigation into whether false information was provided in this land transfer.

Conclusion:

This complaint does not allege guilt.

It asserts that reasonable grounds exist to suspect that false information was provided in the course of an official land transfer, and that the matter falls within FICAC’s jurisdiction for investigation.

In his 2021 and 2022 statutory declarations, Biman Chand Prasad didn't declare that he had disposed of the Rakiraki land to his son.

He also failed to declare that he had gifted Shanti Devi's former family land to his son, who by all accounts, has been living and working in New Zealand.

"The morning continued with a peaceful yoga session, bringing relaxation, movement, and positive energy to everyone present."

As dawn broke over Suva on International Yoga Day on 21 June, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka's Finance Minister joined the mats and mantras with serene confidence. Dressed in white t-shirt, breathing deeply, and posing alongside other yoga enthusiasts, he struck the image of a principled, peaceful leader, rooted in Indian tradition and moral clarity.
But while Prasad was inhaling balance and exhaling peace, the truth he left off his statutory declarations remained tightly held in silence.
But behind that placid public image is a more troubling reality: on 5 September 2024, FICAC had prepared a charge sheet to prosecute him for filing false and misleading declarations.
Biman Prasad can roll out the mat all he wants. But until he faces the music over those false disclosures, no amount of chanting or asana will bring balance to the truth.

*In a country where political spin is an Olympic sport, Fiji's Finance Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister BIMAN PRASAD has perfected the pose: calm on the yoga mat, contorted on paper

COMING: The LEASES, TRANSFERS, And The DECLARATIONS: INSIDE Land Dealings Linked to BIMAN PRASAD and RAJNI KAUSHAL CHAND

The $30,000 Land Transfer: Questions Arising from the 2018 Assignment of iTaukei Lease No 33777

*The land transfer documents relating to iTaukei Lease No. 33777 raise a number of legal, regulatory, and disclosure questions that merit closer scrutiny, particularly when viewed against Fiji’s land laws, statutory declaration obligations, and the broader public interest in transparency involving politically exposed persons.

Public Interest Complaint to FICAC on the Rakiraki Land Transfer

In October 2025, acting under the doctrine of public interest and in my capacity as Editor of Fijileaks, I formally lodged a detailed complaint with the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) concerning the Rakiraki land transfer involving Certificate of Title 36435 and related declarations by National Federation Party leader Biman Chand Prasad.

The complaint was supported by extensive documentary evidence, including land transfer records, statutory declarations, company documents, title searches, correspondence, and other supporting materials relating to the ownership, transfer, disclosure, and possible concealment of assets connected to the Rakiraki property and associated interests.

The referral raised serious questions regarding alleged false declarations, non-disclosure of assets, potential abuse of office, and whether the declarations made under the Political Parties Act accurately reflected the true state of ownership and beneficial interests. Copies of the complaint and supporting documents were circulated to relevant authorities and oversight bodies in Fiji and overseas jurisdictions (New Zealand) where necessary.

Fijileaks will continue to examine the documentary trail surrounding the Rakiraki land transaction and related asset declarations in the wider public interest, particularly in light of ongoing legal and political scrutiny surrounding Biman Prasad’s statutory declarations and disclosure obligations.

MYNAHGATE: When a Colonial BIRD Flies Into Fiji’s Girmit Politics. The Chirping Never Stops. Latest Debate Takes Wing Over a Mynah Bird Shirt

17/5/2026

The Mynah Controversy: Girmit Memory, Racist Symbolism, and the Burden of Colonial Metaphors

The criticism by Dialogue Fiji executive director Nilesh Lal over the use of a mynah bird image on a shirt produced for Girmit Day celebrations in Fiji has reopened difficult questions about race, memory, and the language through which Indo-Fijians have historically been portrayed.

Nilesh Lal describes the imagery as “highly inappropriate, deeply offensive, and historically tone-deaf,” arguing that Girmit Day exists to honour the suffering, endurance, and contribution of the girmitiyas rather than revive symbols associated with their dehumanisation.

His criticism is not directed merely at a bird printed on a commemorative shirt. It goes to the deeper historical meanings that the mynah bird has acquired within Fiji’s racial and literary discourse.

The Common Mynah itself arrived in Fiji during the colonial era. British authorities had introduced the bird into Fiji and other sugar-producing colonies across the British Empire, including Mauritius, Trinidad, Guyana, Jamaica, and Natal in South Africa.

Nilesh Lal says the mynah bird carries a “direct legacy of dehumanization,” pointing to author James A. Michener’s Return to Paradise, where the bird was used as a literary device to portray Indo-Fijians as an “invasive pest."

Minister Charan Jeath Singh

The bird had originally come from the Indian subcontinent. Colonial agricultural officials believed the mynah would function as a natural form of pest control within cane fields. Like many colonial environmental experiments, however, the consequences proved far more complex than expected.

The mynah multiplied rapidly. It spread across towns, villages, plantations, and urban centres. Over time, it became widely viewed as noisy, aggressive, territorial, and invasive. In Fiji, as elsewhere, the bird increasingly acquired a negative reputation because of its impact on native bird populations and its ability to dominate human settlements.

It is precisely that reputation which later entered racial discourse.

Nilesh Lal specifically refers to Return to Paradise by James A. Michener, where the mynah bird emerged as a literary metaphor associated with Indo-Fijians. Michener’s Pacific writings reflected many of the assumptions and anxieties of the colonial world in which he wrote. Within that framework, the mynah increasingly became symbolic of the Indo-Fijian presence itself.

The comparison was deeply troubling.

Throughout colonial history, racial minorities and migrant communities were often described through the language of pests, weeds, vermin, or invasive species. Such metaphors were never innocent literary devices. They functioned politically by reducing human beings into biological nuisances whose presence could be viewed as unnatural or threatening.

In Fiji, Indo-Fijians have long endured accusations from ethno-nationalist elements that they were “imported people” with no organic claim to the country. The mynah metaphor therefore carried a particularly cruel resonance because it echoed precisely that narrative of foreign intrusion.

Yet the historical reality was entirely different.

The girmitiyas did not arrive in Fiji as conquerors or colonisers. They came as indentured labourers transported under the authority of empire to sustain the plantation economy built around sugar. Many left poverty, famine, caste oppression, or economic desperation in India. Many died during the voyages across the kala pani. Many endured harsh conditions on the plantations. Most never returned to India.

Over generations, Indo-Fijians transformed themselves from plantation labourers into citizens who helped shape modern Fiji through commerce, education, journalism, law, medicine, trade unionism, politics, and public service.

That was why Nilesh Lal argued that associating Girmit remembrance with a symbol historically linked to notions of invasiveness or nuisance risked undermining the dignity of the very people Girmit Day seeks to honour.

At the same time, the controversy also revealed the complexity of symbols within Indo-Fijian cultural memory itself.

For many Indo-Fijians, the mynah bird has never been viewed negatively. The “maina” bird existed throughout India long before indenture, and generations of Indo-Fijians grew up regarding it as familiar, intelligent, talkative, and resilient. In homes and villages, it often became part of childhood memory and everyday life. Some who saw the shirt may therefore have interpreted the image simply as a harmless cultural reference disconnected from its darker racial associations.

But public symbols rarely remain innocent once history attaches meaning to them.

The issue raised by Nilesh Lal is therefore not simply about design aesthetics or political correctness. It concerns historical consciousness itself. Girmit Day is not merely a festival. It is also a memorial to one of the largest forced labour migrations in the history of the British Empire.

The language and imagery surrounding that remembrance matter.

The girmitiyas were human beings who crossed oceans under immense suffering and uncertainty. They were not pests, invasive species, or colonial curiosities. They became part of the moral, economic, intellectual, and political foundation of modern Fiji.

That is why the controversy surrounding the mynah bird image continues to resonate so strongly in Fiji today.

It touches the oldest wound in Indo-Fijian history: the struggle not merely to survive in Fiji, but to belong.

The Indian indentured labourers were uprooted to prevent the disintegration of the iTaukei way of life. While the indentured labourers toiled on the sugar, tea, and cotton plantations, the iTaukei and their chiefs were allowed to "grog" under the mango tree.

Song of the Mynah and the Girmitiya

The mynah came before dawn,
black-winged, sharp-eyed, restless,
crossing oceans in the belly of empire
as the girmitiya crossed in chains of paper,
his thumbprint sealing a fate
he could neither read nor refuse.

Both arrived where cane rose taller than memory.

The bird perched upon the roofs
of the coolie lines,
chirping above muddy drains,
watching women in torn saris
wash hunger from brass plates
while children chased dust
and dragonflies
between rows of cane.

The girmitiya heard the bird
before the overseer’s whistle.
Before the crack of the whip.
Before the burning sun
climbed over Lautoka
and the fields swallowed
another day.

The mynah did not know caste.
It did not know kala pani.
It did not know the smell of a ship
where bodies lay fevered
beside saltwater prayers.

But it knew survival.

It learnt the language of plantations,
of smoke rising from CSR mills,
of sweat dripping into cane roots,
of men who cut sugar for an empire
that would never know their names.

At night the bird returned,
settling in mango trees
above the barracks
while the girmitiyas whispered
of Hindustan.

Of mothers left waiting beside
village wells.
Of wives who never
received letters.
Of fathers who died believing
their sons had vanished into
the sea.

The mynah listened.

Years passed.
The cane grew.
Children became teachers,
lawyers, drivers, shopkeepers.
The coolie line became settlement,
the settlement became town,
and the girmitiya
slowly became citizen.

But Fiji never fully stopped counting origins.
They called the bird invasive.
Noisy. Foreign.
A pest carried by empire.

Sometimes they called the Indian the same.

The words changed shape
through politics,
through coups and constitutions,
through speeches about
ownership and belonging,
but beneath them lingered
the old accusation:

You came from elsewhere.

Yet the mynah did not steal
the islands.
Nor did the girmitiya.

One survived by instinct.
The other by endurance.
Today the bird still chirps
across Fiji
from Suva roofs to Labasa
cane fields,
from Ba markets to Nadi
bus stands.

Its voice rises each morning
beside temple bells and church hymns,
beside the call to prayer and
the roar of buses,
woven now into the soundscape
of the nation itself.

And somewhere beneath that
restless
chirping
lies the unfinished story of Girmit:

how empire carried birds and
labourers together,
how one became nuisance,
the other became nation,
and how both remained
forever tied
to the sugarfields of Fiji.

From 1987 Coups to 1990 Constitution of Fiji:
“How Many Generations Must One Wait to Become a Native?”

The 1990 Constitution brought me into direct conflict with Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, and Sitiveni Rabuka when the late Professor Asesela Ravuvu and I exchanged sharp words at a British Foreign and Commonwealth Office seminar in London on constitutional developments in Fiji following the 1987 coups.

Also seated across the table was the late Ratu Epeli Nailatikau, then Rabuka’s High Commissioner to London and later President of Fiji under the post-Ghai Constitution.

It was at that seminar that I repeated what I had earlier told a BBC television audience: “The 1987 coups raise one, and only one, question: how many generations must one wait to become a native? My ancestors were coolie Indians, not me or my fellow Indo-Fijians.”

The remark went to the heart of the constitutional crisis that followed the 1987 coups. The issue was not merely political power. It was the deeper and more troubling question of belonging, citizenship, and identity in Fiji.

For many Indo-Fijians born in Fiji, whose families had lived, worked, suffered, and died in the country for generations, the coups signalled that they remained perpetual outsiders in the land of their birth.

The 1990 Constitution institutionalised that exclusion by entrenching ethnic supremacy in the political structure of the State. It transformed race into a constitutional principle and reduced equal citizenship to a secondary consideration.

That debate in London was therefore not an academic exchange. It was a confrontation over the future soul of Fiji.

Sadly, Ravuvu barely exchanged a word with me, for I had the temerity to tell him: "You are a half-caste i-Taukei and Fijian Chinese, just like my nephews and nieces, except that they are half Indo-Fijians and Fijian Chinese. So, please, just SHUT UP."
I repeated it in my maternal Tailevu i-taukei dialect to drive home the message to him.

From Fiji to the Caribbean and Mauritius: The Mynah Bird, Indians, and the Politics of Colonial Memory

The politics surrounding the Common Mynah in Fiji are not entirely unique. Across several former sugar colonies of the British and Dutch empires, particularly Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, and Mauritius, the bird also arrived alongside Indian indentured labour and became entangled, to varying degrees, with colonial memory, race, and identity.

Yet the political meanings attached to the mynah evolved differently across the sugar colonies.

In Trinidad, Guyana, Suriname, and Mauritius, the mynah was introduced during the plantation era for much the same reason as in Fiji: colonial authorities believed the bird would help control insects and agricultural pests affecting sugar cane production. Like Indian indentured labourers themselves, the bird travelled through imperial shipping routes linking India to the plantation economies of the Caribbean, Africa, and the Pacific.

The bird adapted quickly to tropical colonial environments and became a familiar presence across cane districts, villages, ports, and towns populated heavily by descendants of Indian labourers.

But unlike Fiji, where Indo-Fijians became a demographic minority confronting repeated ethno-nationalist challenges to their belonging, Indo-descended communities in Mauritius, Trinidad, and Guyana eventually emerged as dominant or near-dominant demographic and political forces.

That historical difference mattered enormously.

In Mauritius especially, Indo-Mauritians eventually became the numerical majority and the central political force within the postcolonial state. Indian languages, Hindu festivals, and Indo-Mauritian political leadership became deeply embedded within national identity itself. As a result, the mynah bird never acquired the same sharp political symbolism as an “alien” Indian presence.

In Mauritius, the bird is generally viewed simply as part of the island’s ordinary environment. It appears in gardens, towns, cane districts, and villages much as it does in Fiji. Mauritian folklore and everyday conversation sometimes portray the bird as noisy, adaptable, intelligent, or mischievous, but not as a racial metaphor directed at Indo-Mauritians.

The same broad pattern existed in Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana.

In Trinidad, the mynah is often treated more as a noisy urban nuisance than a political symbol. Trinidadian humour and popular culture may describe the bird as talkative, opportunistic, or irritating, but it rarely functions as a sustained metaphor for Indo-Trinidadians themselves. Political tensions in Trinidad historically revolved more directly around Afro-Trinidadian and Indo-Trinidadian competition over elections, state resources, religion, and cultural dominance rather than ecological imagery.

Similarly, in Guyana, political conflict historically centred on labour struggles, class divisions, Cold War rivalries, and Afro-Guyanese versus Indo-Guyanese competition for state power. The mynah never became central to those ideological battles. Indo-Guyanese identity instead became associated more strongly with rice farming, sugar estates, Hinduism, Islam, and village life.

In Suriname, descendants of Indian indentured labourers, known as Hindustanis, similarly did not experience the mynah as a politically charged racial symbol. Dutch colonialism produced a somewhat different racial and linguistic structure from the British colonies, and the bird largely remained part of the ordinary tropical environment rather than national political rhetoric.

That did not mean colonial prejudices were absent.

Across the plantation colonies, Indians were often stereotyped by colonial writers and sections of European society as commercially aggressive, clannish, excessively reproductive, or culturally foreign. Such stereotypes echoed anxieties that also appeared in Fiji’s racial politics. Literary comparisons between migrant populations and introduced species occasionally surfaced throughout the colonial world.

But Fiji remained distinct because of the fusion between race, land ownership, indigeneity, and constitutional power.

In Fiji, Indo-Fijians remained permanently vulnerable to arguments that they were descendants of temporary labourers who never fully belonged within an i-taukei political order. The coups of 1987, the racial provisions of the 1990 Constitution, and decades of ethno-nationalist rhetoric deepened that sense of contested belonging.

Within that environment, metaphors involving imported species such as the mynah bird acquired sharper and more dangerous political meanings.

By contrast, in Mauritius, Indo-Mauritians became the political mainstream itself. In Trinidad and Guyana, Indo-descended populations eventually produced Prime Ministers, Presidents, dominant political parties, and major state institutions. The political struggle in those societies centred less on whether Indians belonged and more on how power should be shared between competing ethnic blocs.

There is also another important distinction.

In Mauritius and much of the Caribbean, the mynah became absorbed into creole everyday culture without carrying heavy ideological baggage. People complained about the bird’s noise, droppings, or nuisance behaviour much as they might complain about pigeons elsewhere. It rarely carried the emotionally charged burden now associated with the symbol in Fiji’s Girmit debate.

Yet beneath those differences lay a common imperial history.

The mynah travelled through the same colonial networks that carried indentured Indians from Calcutta and Madras to the cane colonies after the abolition of slavery. Both the labourers and the birds formed part of the same plantation experiment conducted by empire across the tropical world.

The bird therefore remains, whether in Fiji, Mauritius, Trinidad, Guyana, or Suriname, one of the quieter living relics of the indenture age.

Its chirping across cane districts from Lautoka to Port Louis in Mauritius, from Labasa to Georgetown in Guyana, and from Ba to Port of Spain in Trinidad still echoes the older movements of empire itself: ships carrying labour, capital, crops, birds, and entire displaced worlds across the oceans.

London, 1991: The late Dr Cheddi Jagan
and Fijileaks Editor

Editor's Note: As a direct descendant of Indian indentured labourers in Fiji, my writing and fight for democracy, was also deeply shaped by the friendship and guidance of the late Dr Cheddi Jagan of Guyana, likewise a descendant of indentured Indians. Jagan was overthrown in the 1953 insurrection while serving as Guyana’s first elected Prime Minister, but returned triumphantly to power in 1992. For both of us, our families’ roots in the sugarcane fields of Fiji and British Guiana were not just history but living memory, and they shaped our understanding of race, democracy, class, and political power in divided societies.

From Girmit to Grief in Fiji: Descendants of India’s Indentured Labourers Watch Their Homes Turn to Ashes

Girmit Day Again, But Where Is Audited Account for 2023 Celebrations?One question from 2023 refuses to disappear: where is audited account that SASHI KIRAN had promised would be submitted to the Parliament?

15/5/2026

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.

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 $82,000 QUESTION: Sheraton Hotel Bill Hangs Over Fiji Architects Association Conference, with the FNFP owned hotel chasing after FAA president Adish Naidu and the Sponsors to pay up the outstanding debt

14/5/2026

*It has emerged that Adish Naidu signed the contract with the Sheraton Hotel to host the conference last November. Did he inform the Director and Chairman of the FNPF Board, Daksesh Patel, of the potential conflict of interest at the time the contract was signed? Naidu was also Chairman of the FNPF-owned Sheraton Hotel Board at the time. Some of the sponsors have told Fijileaks that, because their company banners were not displayed at the conference, they do not believe they are under any obligation to meet the costs of the event.

$82,000 QUESTION: SHERATON BILL HANGS OVER FIJI ARCHITECTURE CONFERENCE

The Fiji Architecture Conference and Trade Exhibition, held on 13-15 November 2025, was presented as a flagship gathering of the profession, bringing together architects, consultants, suppliers, and policymakers under one roof at the Sheraton resort. It was marketed as a moment of industry cohesion and forward planning, a space where design, regulation, and commercial opportunity would intersect. Yet, long after the banners have come down and the delegates have departed, a more prosaic and troubling question appears to linger in the background: who paid the bill?

At the centre of the issue is an alleged outstanding sum of approximately $82,000 said to be owed to the Sheraton hotel in relation to the staging of the conference. The figure, if accurate, is not insignificant. It represents not merely a routine commercial dispute but raises broader questions about financial management, accountability, and governance within a professional body that purports to set standards for the built environment.

The conference itself was organised under the auspices of the Fiji Architects Association, with Adish Naidu playing a leading role in its delivery. As a prominent figure in the profession, and a sitting board member of the Fiji National Provident Fund, Naidu occupies a position that carries both influence and expectation. It is precisely because of that standing that questions surrounding the financial aftermath of the conference assume a wider public interest dimension.

Events of this scale are not casual undertakings. They involve contractual commitments with venues, catering providers, technical suppliers, and accommodation services. The Sheraton, as host venue, allegedly entered into a commercial arrangement with Adish Naidu based on agreed pricing structures and final settlement terms. In ordinary circumstances, such obligations are settled promptly, particularly where the event has been publicly promoted and presumably supported by sponsorships, delegate fees, and institutional backing.

If an $82,000 balance remains outstanding for over a year, several possibilities arise. It may indicate a shortfall between projected and actual revenue. It may reflect disputes over invoicing or service delivery. Alternatively, it could point to delays in remittance or internal financial disorganisation. Each scenario carries different implications, but all converge on a single issue: transparency.

The absence of clear public disclosure about the financial outcome of the conference invites scrutiny. Professional associations, especially those that speak on governance, planning, and national development, are expected to maintain a high standard of financial probity. Where funds are raised in the name of a collective profession, there is an implicit duty to account for how those funds are applied and whether liabilities have been discharged.

The matter does not exist in isolation. It intersects with a broader pattern of questions that have begun to circulate regarding Naidu’s professional and institutional roles. These include inquiries into the operational status of his architectural practice, Yellow Architects, and whether it continues to function or has been wound down. Such details are not trivial. They go to questions of disclosure, conflict of interest, and the separation between private enterprise and public or quasi-public responsibilities.

The Sheraton itself is not an incidental venue in this narrative. It is one of several flagship hotel properties owned and operated by the Fiji National Provident Fund, an institution that manages the retirement savings of ordinary Fijians. Any outstanding liability to such an entity carries an added layer of public interest, given that unpaid debts ultimately intersect with assets held in trust for contributors.

The convergence of these issues creates a narrative that extends beyond a single unpaid invoice. It speaks to governance culture. It asks whether the institutions that regulate and represent the architectural profession are themselves adhering to the standards they advocate in public discourse.

There is also a reputational dimension. Outstanding debts of this nature risk damaging not only the credibility of the organisers but also the standing of local professional bodies in the eyes of international partners. Fiji’s ability to host conferences, attract investment, and present itself as a reliable commercial environment depends in part on the integrity with which such obligations are honoured.

For the Fiji Architects Association, the situation presents a moment of reckoning. Silence or ambiguity will only deepen speculation. What is required is a clear accounting: what was owed, what has been paid, what remains outstanding, and why. If there is a dispute, it should be disclosed. If there has been a delay, it should be explained. If the matter has already been settled, confirmation should be provided without equivocation.

For Adish Naidu, the issue is equally direct. Leadership carries with it the burden of explanation. Where questions arise, particularly involving substantial sums of money and public-facing events, they must be addressed with clarity and precision.

The $82,000 question is therefore more than a financial query. It is a test of accountability. It will determine whether the standards demanded of others in planning, construction, and governance are matched by those who claim to lead the profession itself.

Until that question is answered, the conference remains unfinished business.

Patel

It has emerged that Adish Naidu signed the contract with the Sheraton Hotel to host the conference last November. Did he inform the FNPF Board Chairman, Daksesh Patel, of the potential conflict of interest at the time the contract was signed?

Naidu was also Chairman of the FNPF-owned Sheraton Hotel Board at the time.

Some of the sponsors have told Fijileaks that, because their company banners were not displayed at the conference, they do not believe they are under any obligation to meet the costs of the event.

THE FEAST IS OVER: NOW COMES THE $82,000 OUTSTANDING BILL

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