The Fiji Times e-edition carried a lead story this morning about a speech by Manoa Kamikamica to the Fiji-New Zealand Business Forum.
A keen-eyed reader points out that the accompanying photo shows the date on the slide behind the Minister as September 8. Yet here’s how it appeared in today’s Fiji Times with yesterday’s date – October 16.
Quite why the story has been recycled is a mystery. But at the bottom, the Fiji Times discloses that it has run the story before.
Given that Grubsheet noticed the story at 0300 Sydney time, I think I can be forgiven for having assumed that Manoa Kamikamica – wearing the same suit – had gone to Wellington from Rome. Alas, I fell victim to something we used to joke about when I worked for Qorvis under the last government: “The Fiji Times. Yesterday’s news tomorrow or maybe next week”. Or in this case, more than a month later.
Yet apart from the wrong date and the fact that Brutus didn’t go direct from the Roman Forum to the Wellington Forum, as we reported, our comments about Manoa Kamikamica’s speech to potential investors remain valid. So the story stays but in modified form.
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The message from the Coalition is precisely the same highfalutin message Grubsheet used to write at the behest of the last government. In fact, some of the words in this speech could have been lifted straight from Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum‘s playbook for his own trade minister, Faiyaz Koya.
Fact: Any investor will tell you that if you come to Fiji with a credible project, you will find the same bureaucratic impediments and frustrations with this government as the last. But with one important difference – the added frustration of a government mired in scandal, infighting and constantly undermining the rule of law on which sound investment ultimately depends – the confidence that when you get into a scrape with the authorities, you will get a fair hearing in the courts.
All of which will have left existing investors listening to the next portion of Brutus’s speech figuratively rolling around the aisles in stitches.
Consistence? Stability? A country that honours its commitments? Yeah sure.
Kiwi businessmen don’t have to look far to see a fellow Kiwi in the form of the substantive DPP, Christopher Pryde, whose seven year contract with the Fijian government has been trashed, has had trumped up charges of expense fiddling reinstated from the same file which three High Court judges had already dismissed when they exonerated him of misbehaviour and is still fighting for justice. Get into trouble with this crowd and the same thing can happen to you.
As for stability, forget it. The bloke in the checked suit in front of you is facing corruption allegations (perjury and perverting the course of justice) at the same time as he is white-anting the incumbent Prime Minister in a less-than-subtle tilt for the leadership.
The man who presides over the judiciary – the Chief Justice, Salesi Temo – has also been accused of perjury and perverting the course of justice by the same Supreme Court Commission of Inquiry that has leveled the allegations against Kamikamica. But the government is refusing opposition demands to suspend him and now the CJ is using public money to apply for a judicial review of the CoI findings through a judge he has chosen personally to hear the case. Yep, incredible.
So stability in Fiji is an illusion. And next, the country faces a period of heightened instability as a weak coalition government comes under further strain, with its three components – the People’s Alliance, the NFP and SODELPA – each trying to compete for votes at an election just over a year away.
There are multiple factions in the main Coalition party alone, the People’s Alliance, one of them headed by Manoa Kamikamica. So even the PAP is unstable, quite apart from the Balkanisation of Fijian politics generally, and the prospect of the next government being a coalition of even more parties. More infighting. More instability.
Yes, Fiji is at the crossroads alright. But not in the manner depicted in the Minister’s speech.
Finally, some facts about the guy in the checked suit. Facing such serious corruption allegations that if proven, could see the grey checks give way to an orange jumpsuit.
NOTE TO MY READERS:
Doubtless Grubsheet will be accused of “treason” – of undermining investor confidence in Fiji. It’s the accusation that Biman Prasad and others have already leveled against domestic critics, reading from the same playbook as Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
Too bad. Nothing I have written here isn’t fact. So rather than shoot the messenger, how about the onus being on the government to clean up its act. To establish genuine investor confidence rather than its empty hype.
Implement the recommendations of the CoI, suspend the Chief Justice, bring back Christopher Pryde to work with the police to bring alleged wrongdoers to justice, restore confidence in the rule law and start enforcing discipline and proper standards of conduct in the government, civil service and offices of state.
From that, genuine investor confidence will flow. Because as it is, Fiji is a house of cards and any investor who bothers to scratch the surface and do their due diligence knows it.
POSTSCRIPT:
Come to think of it, orange would be more flattering than the checks.
Rome …
Wellington…
Next…
Fiji Fashion Week?
Looks like Manoa didn’t have a shower in between the two countries. I wonder if he changed his sapo!
As it is, he has difficulty walking properly. So much so that he can’t even buckle his sandals cos of his swollen f**ked up feet. Come to think of it, most evil c**ts from Fiji end up getting the accursed swollen f**ked up feet syndrome. The curse of the people for people who f**k up the country.
After Wellington, Manoa should high tail it to India on the heels of the Pedo to get some world class medical attention. Hopefully he too drops and dies there…double irony!😁
Dear oh dear. You’re clearly in an even worse mood this morning than I am.
Isa, so he’s also an NCD statistic?Anyway, he can have a shower if flying first class on Emirates, Singapore or Qatar Airlines.
What’s this “difficult walking properly” business all about? First it was Lynda who could not walk properly after her famous offshore brutal encounter with Aseri, then the PM and President whose formal attire are incomplete without a titoko (walking stick), let alone the President’s inability to sit properly as his legs are always wide-open when seated. Seating protocols? Isa, Fiji is sick!
Integrity aside- WTF is it with these politicians traveling like there is no tomorrow and an unlimited budget.
Snout out of the trough, 1 shuffle to the right, snout back in. Meanwhile back in the real world…….
These buffoons actually believe their own BS – especially when it is served piping hot.
How to be an ogre like me.
Step 1) Be ugly.
Step 2) Drive females away with your ugliness.
Step 3) The territory is female free.
Step 4) Invite your family and other ogres to hang out.
This govt is getting more embarrassing just when we thought they couldn’t more embarrassing.
Media is posting clips of the very public argument between the drunken Sugar Minister and a cane grower. It started during tbe QnA at the town hall meeting in Ba last night. The insults and accusations then carried on after the event and police had to be summoned by the drunken minister to shoo away the angry public.
Rabuka was also asked why he increased parliamentary wages and he did his usual baritone double speak and threw Lynda under the bus and said she brought the issue to parliament and rabuka and his merry lot just voted for it. But at the same time he said he wasn’t responsible for the huge hike because it was parliaments fault!!!
WTF is this boci on about? Of course no follow up questions from media. Also rambaku was asked what sort of example he’s setting for the youth by appointing and disregarding the sins and outlaw behavior of lynda. Rabuka’s response was that everyone sins and everyone deserves a second chance!!
WTF!! So how about giving Graeme Leung a second chance? Or the former fisheries minister? Or all the violent prisoners currently in our jails? And does this extend to 2nd and 3rd chances too? Cos rambaku surely has received more chances then anyone else to perpetually break and disregard the law for last 40 odd years. Maybe rambaku should also go to India for treatment and drop and die there…triple irony!!
Guess who is leading the charge and all over the place for Manoa in NZ like a vaginal rash – Mr 20% Sex Pest and The most hated fiji indian in NZ – Pramesh Sharma.
Omg – he has gone crazy using two hats – Vinod Chor Patel and Reddy Chor Group (board chair ) – shame on you Kameeni and Rohit Reddy and entire Vinod patel family – it’s embarrassing to see Sex pest in action, ringing friends for private dinners, paid meet and greet etc – note he isn’t paying for any of it.
Asking his friends to pay to meet the next PM of Fiji, even told my husband that Manoa has the numbers and that’s why Rabuka is scared of him.
Fiji’s ‘grab ‘em by the pussy’ Sharma needs another expose of his own on GrubSheet . Based on the feedback on this blog, he’s another one jostling for space among the piggy snouts in the trough.
He is forever posting pictures with famous people to feel important — the equivalent of name dropping. GD taught him a good lesson the last time, which he has forgotten, given how he been been prancing and prostituting himself to government to get favours.
Since when has a prostitute been shamed? As with Lynda – the women he boasted of having rogered – I will roger them both slowly. Figuratively, of course.
GD, we cannot understand why you have to reference everything back to the previous government and bring in ASK. Your analysis of Manoa is correct. Your assertion that the bureaucratic impediments and frustration under this government is the same as the last one is incorrect.
We know for those of us who have served under and with this and the previous government, the previous government did not have the same impediments as this one. They were working hard on removing the impediments and putting in place digital systems etc. And in fact we’re streamlining decades of rot. And they all spoke with one voice.
These guys are riding on the coat tail of the previous government and are all shooting in different directions and they have placed more bureaucratic impediments and are very corrupt. We see it on a daily basis.
These ministers and not just Manoa, ask for and take money to get things done. For us there is no system now. All ad hoc. Under the previous guys there was a system that we could rely on and hang our hat on. As for the rule of law, even in that the previous government was better. No bullshitting as we have now.
Another thing we can tell you with JVB and ASK being dragged through the courts and JVB being found guilty on flimsy circumstances, the confidence of the ordinary citizens is buggered.
Another thing, take it from us they won’t allow Christopher Pryde to come back come what may. Christopher has far more integrity than any of this current crop at the DPP’s Office. They know if he comes back he will drop all the pending charges against JVB and ASK, as any credible prosecutor would. They cannot have that.
Plus they want someone there like Nancy who is filled with racial and political hatred to do their political targetting. Pryde does not fit that profile. Some of us were disappointed that he did not come back as soon as the president sent him that letter. If he had things would have been different and better.Too late now.
By the way tell Pryde that one of the liu muris against him is his fellow country person, the New Zealand High Commissioner. She has gone all tropical.
I refer to the previous government because I was there. I agree they were better but I still had many complaints made to me about bureaucratic entanglements, though not the corruption that is now being alleged.
It is a question of being nonpartisan on an issue of national importance and calling it as I saw it then and see it now. But, of course, you are entitled to your own opinion.
And, yes, the prosecution service has been corrupted, just as the judiciary has been corrupted. Which is the most important reason for any would-be investor to stay well clear of Fiji until the rot has been cleaned up. If indeed, that is still possible.
Rolex Rabuka should not underestimate Brutus. Overweight with gout he may be but still younger and fresher than Rambo, more educated and more agile. He doesn’t use a walking stick.
As for who’s better looking is up for debate.
Brutus also has on his side a socialite wife who is even more ambitious than him for her husband to get the top job. She’s ruthless.
Brutus feels entitled to be PM and both him and his wife feel betrayed by Rambo who was to voluntarily handover the prime ministership to him, but Rambo developed a liking for the power and adulation, the travel, per diem etc. he is as greedy as they are .
The only reason Mr and Mrs Brutus are not plunging in the knife straight away is because they know Rambo has the vote-pulling power.
But they are waiting and watching… Julius Caesar’s court is nothing compared to itaukei political liumuri!
Brutus cannot take over from Rolex Rambo while the d’Hondt “big man” voting system remains in place. He simply doesn’t have the mana and charisma to attract the mass vote and take others with him into government. And the corruption allegations against him are the final nail in his coffin.
When I was still in good odour with the PAP, I told them that replacing Rabuka with Kamikamica before the last election was madness because Frank would win by a landslide. But instead of burnishing his reputation since then, Brutus has trashed it.
No party can go to the nation and expect to win when it is headed by a crook. With Rabuka gone, the PAP will be lucky to get over the 5 per cent threshold. Especially if Roko Ului starts his foreshadowed new party with the mass support of Lauans in the islands, the rest of the country and the diaspora and wearing the mantle of his father and those who remember the relative stability and prosperity of the Mara years.
And who knows? Even the remnants of FijiFirst – the likes of Inia, Jone and Premila – might stage a comeback. And then there is Mahen and Save etc.
Brutus isn’t going to cut it when this mob draws its knives on him in an election campaign. Without Rabuka, the iTaukei vote is destined to be hopelessly split. And disunity for any political party usually spells death.
Wasn’t the NZ meeting in September? It says 8 September in the background of Manoa’s picture. Just checking. Thanks
You are absolutely right. Well spotted. I will correct the article accordingly but this was on the front page of today’s Fiji Times e-edition.
The rest of the piece is still valid and stands.