TAKING Fiji for a ride: IT company Yalamanchili accused of muscling in on the E-ticketing market with help from Nur Bano Ali and Aiyaz Khaiyum

THE IT company Yalamanchili, hired by the Fiji regime to run the government’s ICT department and to digitize government information, is looking at expanding its role in making more money off the Fiji public.

---

For a while now there were concerns by career civil servants that a foreign company was being given unprecedented access to information on Fiji citizens under the guise of ‘digitizing’ this information. The digitizing of information itself is commendable but the concern is how a country like Fiji which constantly flags its sovereignty has allowed a foreign company access to its computer system and the information it holds on citizens without any public tender process or debate.

Yalamanchili has now muscled in on the E-ticketing market, which explains why Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum suddenly stepped in at the 11th hour in June to halt the E-ticketing process under the guise of ‘opening up the market’ to prevent anti-competitive practices. It seems like neither Vodafone, Foneology or the new players Digicel and BulaMyFiji.com will get as much a return on their investment as they had hoped if Yalamanchili gets its way. Yalamanchili is believed to be pushing for a centrally controlled system which it will design and implement taking a cut from every single E-ticketing transaction on the system throughout Fiji.

The current E-ticketing system designed by Vodafone and Foneology had been presented at a full Cabinet meeting and was eventually accepted by the Cabinet. It had been running for several months quite well and operators were keen to have the system legally confirmed when Khaiyum derailed it. 

One of the bus operators who was against the E-ticketing system and who sits on the board of the Suva Chamber of Commerce, allegedly used the influence of Dr Nur Bano Ali to get Khaiyum to intervene.

Foneology director James Trusler, left, demonstrates the use of the new E-Ticketing console box while LTA media officer Alfred Wiliame, KBL executive chairman Nisar Ali Shah and Vodafone head of corporate affairs and manager M-PAiSA Shailendra Prasad look on

Money bag lady

Word is that Nur Bano got Khaiyum to stop the project until she and Yalamanchili’s local partner Nisar Ali could figure out how to make money out of the estimated $100 million a year that will flow through the system.  Khaiyum allegedly obliged and said a ‘revised’ set of Minimum Standard Requirements (MSR) would be issued by the AG’s office.

There’s a lot of head scratching in stakeholder circles on why the AG’s office should be drafting regulations for e-ticketing system when it is clearly the domain of the Ministry of Transport and the Land Transport Authority.

It is understood that this has seriously demoralized the staff and CEO of LTA. Permanent Secretary for Transport Francis Kean, Bainimarama’s brother-in-law is also reportedly concerned about the turn of events and has warned Bainimarama about what is going on.

Under the guise of big words such as “interoperability”, the AG then involved Nisar Ali without calling for a tender to redraft the MSR. Word is rife that the revised MSR by Nisar Ali will recommend that all E-ticketing solution providers integrate their system to a proposed national switch to be developed by Yalamanchili and pay a fee on transactions.

So for every bus E-ticketing fare transaction, a percentage will allegedly go to Yalamanchili, Khaiyum and Nur Bano.

Editor's Note: Story filed by a Fijileaks Contributor.

---