 Sunil Mishra |  |  Shane Mishra |
HIS son SHANE MISHRA donated $10,000 to FijiFirst Party. He made the donation on 22 October 2018, two months before the November 2018 election. There is no record of any receipt or who from the FFP accepted the donation. His father Sunil Mishra made his first donation on 19 June 2014 to FFP Treasurer Vimlesh Kumar, the current acting Fiji Pine Ltd CEO. On 20 March 2017, Mishra made another donation of $10,000 under the name, Sunil PRASAD Mishra, and on 6 October 2018, a further $10,000. In total, FATHER-SON donated $40,000. As we have pointed out regarding previous donors, the donations are legal under Aiyaz Khaiyum's Donation Decree but it is the perception of bias, nepotism, and even conflict of interest that must be troubling the ordinary Fijian citizens of all races who have the power to VOTE but are penniless to DONATE. Super Construction was awarded contracts for the Bau Central College, Nadi and Ra Municipal Markets, Cyclone Winston school repairs, rural drainage and civil works in the western division, and Parveen Bala reportedly had awarded Super Constructon the Lautoka City Council works. However, it was the Rakiraki Market loan saga and the winning of contract afterwards that has propelled Sunil Mishra and his Super Construction in the news, even though Fijian media have not identified him in person. The 2018-2019 Audit-General's Report on Rakiraki
Municipal Council below:
Fiji Labour Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry
on Rakiraki market scandal
"Another matter of grave concern is how the Government ignores issues associated with public construction projects, even those raised by the Auditor-General. Take for instance the Rakiraki municipal market project. The Auditor-General in his 2019 report revealed that a contractor had paid off the council’s debt of around $115,000. He had then secured the contract for the construction of the $7m market. He cited this as a case of conflict of interest. He called on the Ministry for Local Government to investigate the matter but to date the Minister has said nothing on it."
SPOT ON "There is considerable controversy over the multi-million dollar state-of-the-art office complex for the Prime Minister, at a time when thousands of our working families are suffering through job losses, paycuts and reduced working hours as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.
In his usual garbled style, Economy Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum justified this “extravagance” thus in the 2020/21 Budget: “The work must go on –– and by keeping the construction industry humming, we are sustaining and creating jobs, and preparing to emerge from this crisis looking not desolate, but in pristine condition.” Whatever that means! The new office complex for the PM is one of several construction projects he said were “shovel ready sites” that the Fiji First government intends to push so as to “emerge from the crisis … in pristine condition”. However, the manner in which the Economy Minister is keeping “the construction industry humming” has begun to raise a lot of eyebrows.
Construction industry concerns
There seems an abysmal lack of accountability and transparency in the handling of tenders for public works despite the existence of a government procurement office to regulate and administer the procurement of all goods, services and works for the Government valued at more than $50,000. The approving authority for such goods, services and works is the Tenders Board. There is also a Construction Implementation Unit responsible for oversighting construction projects. To begin with, advertisements calling for expressions of interest for major public works are placed only in the Fiji Sun, to the exclusion of the more widely read The Fiji Times. The normal procedure, to ensure transparency, should be for all bidders to be invited on the closing date when all tenders are opened in their presence and the tender amount of each bidder announced. However, industry sources claim this is no longer happening. As a result, some builders have stopped participating, claiming it’s just an exercise in futility. I have raised before that I have learned that the rebuilding and repair of schools damaged by Severe Tropical Cyclone Winston is costing $3000 to $5000 per square metre. This is outrageously exorbitant. According to local builders and consulting firms, a five-star hotel can be built for about $3500 per square metre. They say that considering that the major work required was to replace roofs, the cost should not have exceeded $1500-$1800 per square metre. How was this glaring incongruity overlooked by the Tenders Board and the Construction Implementation Unit?
Construction projects
Construction of the Lautoka and Nakasi Police Stations are estimated to cost $30 million and $35m respectively. Nadi is put at $19m. These are only initial outlays — what the completed projects will cost is anybody’s guess. Take the PM’s new office complex. There was a perception created in the 2020/21 Budget that it would cost $7m. This is grossly misleading. If three-storey police stations are projected to cost $30m and upwards, how can a five-storey, ultra-modern structure for the PM’s office cost $7m? Indeed, over the next three years to 2022, $7m a year has been allocated for the complex – a total of $21m. But I am reliably informed that a more realistic cost of the project would be $40m, if not more.
Government’s silence
Another matter of grave concern is how the Government ignores issues associated with public construction projects, even those raised by the Auditor-General. Take for instance the Rakiraki municipal market project. The Auditor-General in his 2019 report revealed that a contractor had paid off the council’s debt of around $115,000. He had then secured the contract for the construction of the $7m market. He cited this as a case of conflict of interest. He called on the Ministry for Local Government to investigate the matter but to date the Minister has said nothing on it. Likewise, not a word from her on the Lautoka City Council’s swimming pool scandal. Turning to statutory bodies, work on FNPF’s Nadi Retail development, into its sixth year, is still not completed. Originally put at $23m the cost has escalated to $35m or more by now. No comments from the Minister — it’s business as usual. I believe there is sufficient cause for an independent inquiry into the procedures and practices employed by the Ministry of Economy and the municipal councils in awarding contracts for public construction projects."
In his usual garbled style, Economy Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum justified this “extravagance” thus in the 2020/21 Budget: “The work must go on –– and by keeping the construction industry humming, we are sustaining and creating jobs, and preparing to emerge from this crisis looking not desolate, but in pristine condition.” Whatever that means! The new office complex for the PM is one of several construction projects he said were “shovel ready sites” that the Fiji First government intends to push so as to “emerge from the crisis … in pristine condition”. However, the manner in which the Economy Minister is keeping “the construction industry humming” has begun to raise a lot of eyebrows.
Construction industry concerns
There seems an abysmal lack of accountability and transparency in the handling of tenders for public works despite the existence of a government procurement office to regulate and administer the procurement of all goods, services and works for the Government valued at more than $50,000. The approving authority for such goods, services and works is the Tenders Board. There is also a Construction Implementation Unit responsible for oversighting construction projects. To begin with, advertisements calling for expressions of interest for major public works are placed only in the Fiji Sun, to the exclusion of the more widely read The Fiji Times. The normal procedure, to ensure transparency, should be for all bidders to be invited on the closing date when all tenders are opened in their presence and the tender amount of each bidder announced. However, industry sources claim this is no longer happening. As a result, some builders have stopped participating, claiming it’s just an exercise in futility. I have raised before that I have learned that the rebuilding and repair of schools damaged by Severe Tropical Cyclone Winston is costing $3000 to $5000 per square metre. This is outrageously exorbitant. According to local builders and consulting firms, a five-star hotel can be built for about $3500 per square metre. They say that considering that the major work required was to replace roofs, the cost should not have exceeded $1500-$1800 per square metre. How was this glaring incongruity overlooked by the Tenders Board and the Construction Implementation Unit?
Construction projects
Construction of the Lautoka and Nakasi Police Stations are estimated to cost $30 million and $35m respectively. Nadi is put at $19m. These are only initial outlays — what the completed projects will cost is anybody’s guess. Take the PM’s new office complex. There was a perception created in the 2020/21 Budget that it would cost $7m. This is grossly misleading. If three-storey police stations are projected to cost $30m and upwards, how can a five-storey, ultra-modern structure for the PM’s office cost $7m? Indeed, over the next three years to 2022, $7m a year has been allocated for the complex – a total of $21m. But I am reliably informed that a more realistic cost of the project would be $40m, if not more.
Government’s silence
Another matter of grave concern is how the Government ignores issues associated with public construction projects, even those raised by the Auditor-General. Take for instance the Rakiraki municipal market project. The Auditor-General in his 2019 report revealed that a contractor had paid off the council’s debt of around $115,000. He had then secured the contract for the construction of the $7m market. He cited this as a case of conflict of interest. He called on the Ministry for Local Government to investigate the matter but to date the Minister has said nothing on it. Likewise, not a word from her on the Lautoka City Council’s swimming pool scandal. Turning to statutory bodies, work on FNPF’s Nadi Retail development, into its sixth year, is still not completed. Originally put at $23m the cost has escalated to $35m or more by now. No comments from the Minister — it’s business as usual. I believe there is sufficient cause for an independent inquiry into the procedures and practices employed by the Ministry of Economy and the municipal councils in awarding contracts for public construction projects."
In our 13 September 2020 posting, we had noted the following:
SUNIL MISHRA, the Co-Owner (with New Zealand entrepreneur Peter Watt) of Golden Point Resort, Nacilau Point in Rakiraki, is also the owner of Super Construction & Civil Works Ltd, the contractor that was awarded the $5,200,000 contract to build the town market. The multi-million dollar project was funded by several agencies including the European Community, AUSAid and the UN Women’s Organisation besides the Khaiyum-Bainimarama Government. He is also reportedly a supporter and financier of the FijiFirst Party. We are yet to obtain a comment from Mishra. Now, we can CONFIRM that he DONATED a total of $30,000 to FFP. We are also informed that whenever Aiyaz Khaiyum and Frank Bainimarama are in Rakiraki, they are allegedly spoiled with free chow and accommodation at Golden Point Resort and allegedly free FISH for Timoci Natuva and Francis Kean
