# HOW FAR THE NATION HAS FALLEN. THE CORRUPT FIJI TIMES (UPDATED SATURDAY AM)

The Motibhai Patel family of Ba have strengthened the case for them to be stripped of the ownership of Fiji’s traditional newspaper of record by a future incoming government by facilitating the blatant censorship of the statement yesterday by the DPP, Christopher Pryde, clarifying why he continues to be absent from Fiji.

Every other media organisation in the country faithfully reports the following passage, which is by far the most important point the DPP makes on any journalistic reckoning:

QUOTE:  “Having read the report of the Commission of Inquiry (the Report) into the circumstances surrounding recent decisions made by the JSC, I remain extremely concerned that investigations by the police will be forwarded to the ODPP and examined by the acting DPP, Nancy Tikoisuva and her deputy, John Rabuku. Both these people are subject to adverse findings in the Report and both clearly have conflicts of interest.

I can only speculate that the reason for the unconscionable delay in making any decision on my matter is a deliberate ploy to ensure that I remain outside Fiji and am unable to make any decisions on the results of police investigations stemming from the Report” UNQUOTE

It is a sensational comment but the Fiji Times ( see below) simply excises it. On what basis does it do so?

• Nancy Tikoisuva and John Rabuku have been specifically cited in the COI Report for failing to acknowledge their conflict of interest in being personal friends of the dismissed FICAC Commissioner, Barbara Malimali, when Malimali’s case was referred to them.
• The COI makes a specific finding that John Rabuku – the Deputy DPP – is liable to a charge of perverting the course of justice.

So there is no risk of defamation arising from the DPP’s statement referring to them. On the contrary, it is a matter of grave public importance that the nation’s chief prosecutor has said that the office of state over which he still presides has been corrupted. And to the extent that he doesn’t believe that Nancy Tikoisuva and John Rabuku can perform their public duty to properly evaluate any police docket sent to them arising from the investigations now taking place.

So no threat of defamation action and a statement of paramount public interest and importance. And that is recognised as such by every other media organisation in Fiji, which includes it in their stories. Except for the Fiji Times.

Now a possible answer. Er, make that probable answer.

• The Fiji Times lawyer is Richard Naidu from Munro Leys, who made representations to FICAC on behalf of another client, the Deputy Prime Minister, Biman Prasad, that any charge against Biman Prasad be delayed until after a visit to Fiji by the head of the World Bank.
• Shortly afterwards, the deputy FICAC Commissioner, Francis Puleiwai, was removed and Barbara Malimali was parachuted into the corruption watchdog.
• A posse of lawyers that included Richard Naidu’s close friend – the President of the Fiji Law Society, Wylie Clarke – descended on FICAC to free Barbara Malimali after Francis Puleiwei arrested her for alleged abuse of office as head of the Electoral Commission.
• Wylie Clarke stayed mute as the Chief Registrar, Tomasi Bainivalu, conveyed a message to Puleiwai from the Chief Justice, Salesi Temo, that no charge she laid would be heard by any court in Fiji.
• Puleiwai accepted that her position was hopeless and stood aside. Barbara Malimali was duly installed at FICAC. And Puleiwai’s plan to charge Biman Prasad that very day (September 5 2024) for allegedly making a false declaration to the Elections Office was thwarted.
• Soon afterwards, Barbara Malimali closed the case against Biman Prasad altogether.

1/ We know for a fact that Richard Naidu intervened to get Biman Prasad’s case at FICAC delayed.

2/ We know for a fact that Richard Naidu has long harboured a resentment against Christopher Pryde for, among other things, his prosecution of the Fiji Times for a racial hate crime.

3/ We know for a fact that Naidu effectively controls the editorial output of the Fiji Times by advising the paper which articles might put it at risk of legal action. No go-ahead from Munro Leys, no story in the paper.

4/ We know for a fact that Richard Naidu knows a great deal about conflicts of interests and failing to declare them.

• As Chair of the Coalition government’s Fiscal Review Committee, he recommended a seven year company tax holiday for Fiji Water, the nation’s biggest exporter.
• To this day, Richard Naidu has yet to explain his gross conflict of interest in having done so when Fiji Water is one of his clients at Munro Leys.
• Grubsheet has asked Naidu a long list of questions which he has declined to answer. In November 2023, he threatened to sue me for defamation in the New South Wales courts, famously declaring that he “had the means” to do so. With Fiji Water and the Fiji Times as clients, that is undoubtedly true.
• 20 months later, Richard Naidu has yet to make good on his threat.

This is a man who was once a journalist himself – a reporter on the paper in which he now occasionally appears as a columnist and is their principal legal advisor.

On what basis would Richard Naidu have advised the Fiji Times to censor the DPP’s comments about Nancy Tikoisuva and John Rabuku? Rest assured, Fiji, that it would not have been a decision taken without Munro Leys playing a role. Because the paper’s editor, Fred Wesley, simply doesn’t have the autonomy to do so.

Richard Naidu’s principal role hitherto at the Fiji Times has been to keep its owners, the Motibhai Patels, out of trouble. But he, and they, are now in an unholy alliance to censor the nation’s chief prosecutor and protect the interests of the Coalition government. And there is only one word for this. Corruption.

For 156 years – since 1869 – the Fiji Times has been the nation’s traditional newspaper of record. It is the first draft of history. And in many instances the nation’s only historical record.

Let history record that the venerable paper has been bastardised to the point where it has become merely a vehicle for promoting the commercial interests and personal prejudices of its owners and in this case, their chief legal advisor.

But what goes around, comes around. A strong case can now be made when the Fiji Times – alone of media outlets in Fiji – censors one of the nation’s principal officers of state that it has forfeited any semblance of independence and integrity.

A strong case can be made that the Motibhai Patels of Ba are not fit and proper persons to be custodians of Fiji’s first draft of history. And in the interests of the public’s right to know – to have access to fair and unbiased coverage – stripping them of the Fiji Times must be among the first priorities of any future government free of the pernicious influence of both the Motibhai Patels and Richard Naidu.

————

The Christopher Pryde Statement in full.

And the bastardised account of the statement in today’s Fiji Times with the most newsworthy contents of paragraphs eight and nine excluded.

The Fiji Times also breaks with its usual practice -once enshrined in law – of the paper identifying the reporter who wrote the article

It is written by “Fiji Times Newsroom”.

Is that you, Richard, perchance?

It is In stark contrast with the coverage on every other media outlet in Fiji, including the Fiji Sun, which includes the paragraphs that the Fiji Times deleted.

It is arguably the Sun which is now writing the first draft of history. And the Fiji Times has been corrupted to the point of being a worthless resource for any Fijian yet unborn on what was actually happening in the country in our own times.

It is a national tragedy and a betrayal of the national interest for which the individuals involved must be held responsible.

UPDATE SATURDAY AM:

The corrupt Fiji Times continues its campaign to undermine the Supreme Court Commission of Inquiry with yet another bizarre article in Saturday’s edition by the late Hot Bread Queen Mere Samisoni’s demented son in-law – Old Peculier himself, Charlie Charters.

I have read and re-read it and can’t find a single reference to the substantive findings of the COI Report, which has found corrupt conduct on an industrial scale in the government and offices of state and which is the subject of a string of separate police investigations mentioned above.

Instead, Charlie is again obsessed with targeting Justice David Ashton-Lewis himself, highlighting a whole lot of irrelevant personal details that have nothing whatsoever to do with his substantive findings.

It is so bizarre that it doesn’t warrant me taking the trouble to screen-shot the contents. Yet Charlie’s agenda becomes abundantly clear soon into the piece – to discredit anyone who is pressing for the COI’s findings to be implemented.

Old Peculier – dear old thing that he is – is such a twat *that he attaches a declaration of interest about his 30 year friendship with the President of the Fiji Law Society, Wylie Clarke – who has been adversely mentioned in the COI Report – without once mentioning “Wylie Coyote” in the actual story.

So is this, in essence, a promotion for Charlie’s mother’s forthcoming book? Because I can’t possibly see any other explanation than familial grandstanding for linking the COI to Somerset Maugham. It is tenuous to the point of high farce.

A Grubsheet gold star for anyone who can explain what on earth Charlie is on about other than giving his Mum a free kick. Oh and shoving the boot into Justice Ashton-Lewis and Grubsheet for advocating that his findings be implemented.

As well as attacking a judicial inquiry, Charlie Charters has waged a decade-long vendetta against Christopher Pryde for having the temerity to prosecute his mother-in-law, Mere Samisoni, for her role in a plan by ethno-nationalist extremists to burn down Suva.

After traces of petrol were found in the boot of her car, Mere Samisoni confessed in a police record of interview that she knew the people to whom she lent that car were intending to firebomb the capital. But because that confession was obtained outside the 48 hour limit for it to be tendered as evidence, the case had to be dropped.

Such hit and run tactics must run in the extended family. Because now Charlie Charters is doing his damnedest to firebomb the COI.

He mustn’t have liked the photo the Fiji TImes used in his last attempt to subvert the Judge’s findings a couple of weeks ago.

This is how he was portrayed then.

And this is how they are portraying Charlie now – an image from one of the papers in his native Yorkshire that is at least 15 years old.

Yeah, that’s the one. With Charlie doing the best he can to look like a local and look a lot younger than he looks now.

Uro, uro!

But he’s still a twat.

NOTE TO READERS:

The Fiji Times also carries a story today casting doubt on Gubsheet’s reporting of the New Zealand offer to provide Fiji with a Kings Counsel to fight the Malimali case in the High Court.

The account comes from an impeccable source and Grubsheet stands by our original story.