There is a supreme irony in the fact that the Chief Justice, Salesi Temo, is currently sitting in judgment of Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum in the High Court for having allegedly given Mohammed Saneem an unlawful payment when Temo has done the same for John Rabuku, the Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions.
Evidence has emerged that the Judicial Services Commission, which Salesi Temo heads, paid John Rabuku a reported $100,000 in compensation for losing his job as Acting DPP. It was a job that Temo gave Rabuku in defiance of the Constitution, which prohibited Rabuku from becoming the nation’s chief prosecutor because he had been found guilty of professional misconduct by the Independent Legal Services Commission.
The Chief Justice went ahead anyway but John Rabuku was eventually removed from the top job after three Supreme Court judges ruled that his appointment was unlawful and Salesi Temo was forced to relent. But soon after Rabuku vacated the top office in Gunu House, he was re-engaged by his successor, Nancy Tikoisuva, as Deputy DPP – a substantive, not an acting position that he holds to this day.
Rabuku has suffered no disadvantage. He would have known that because of his professional misconduct, he was ineligible to hold the position of Acting DPP. The Chief Justice would have known that because of Rabuku’s professional misconduct, he was ineligible to hold the position of Acting DPP. Yet not for the first time, what the Constitution – the supreme law – says is of monumental indifference to the Chief Justice. And it was only when his hand was forced by the three judges on Fiji’s highest court that Salesi Temo relented and John Rabuku was removed.
Removed, that is, only from a job he wasn’t legally entitled to hold. Because there is nothing to prevent someone found guilty of professional misconduct from being appointed deputy DPP. And that’s precisely the job Rabuku was given soon after he was forced from the top job at the ODPP.
Yet incredibly – according to multiple sources – the Judicial Services Commission headed by the Chief Justice paid John Rabuku “compensation” of $100,000 for having been removed as Acting DPP. Yes, Fiji. Your money has gone to “compensating” a man who wasn’t legally entitled to hold a job in the first place for having lost that job on the say-so of three Supreme Court judges but who almost immediately got another job in the same office of state just one rung down from the top position which is a substantive job, not acting, and carries a salary reported to be well over $100,000.
Why on earth would John Rabuku be compensated when he hasn’t suffered a loss? And when his removal in the first place was due to his own professional misconduct and the unlawful action of the Chief Justice in having recommended his appointment to the President knowing full well that he wasn’t legally entitled to be Acting DPP?
These are burning questions that demand to be answered. And they are especially burning yet another hole in the reputation of the rogue Chief Justice, who has used public money to “compensate” John Rabuku when on any examination of the facts, such a payment was not only unwarranted but constitutes a prima facie case of corruption and/or abuse of office. This is in addition to the findings by the Supreme Court Commission of Inquiry into the Malimali affair that Sales Temo allegedly committed perjury and obstructed or perverted the course of justice.
The first hint that John Rabuku was “compensated” came in an obscure reference in Chapter 6 of the CoI Report during evidence given by the former acting deputy commissioner of FICAC, Francis Puleiwai. As is widely known by now, a recording exists of Puleiwai being told on September 5 last year by the Chief Registrar, Tomasi Bainivalu, that the Chief Justice had instructed him to relay a message to Puleiwai that no charge she laid would be heard by any court in Fiji, including the charge she had planned to lay that day against the Deputy Prime Minister, Biman Prasad.
In Section 101, Francis Puleiwai details an an encounter with Tomasi Bainivalu after she had left FICAC, having been deposed in favour of Barbara Malimali, and was waiting to meet the then Acting Chief Justice and the rest of the JSC. (Temo was confirmed in December)
“CR (Chief Registrar) came to meet me just outside the corridor of ACJ’s (Acting Chief Justice) office, before I was taken in to meet the JSC. CR waited with me outside the corridor for about 30 minutes and he informed me to try and negotiate for my payout since that was what the former Acting DPP, Mr John Rabuku had done and was paid a good amount. “
A good amount alright. $100,000, though the payment has never been officially disclosed. It says a great deal about the integrity of Francis Puleiwai, especially compared with John Rabuku, that this is what happened next:
” I informed CR that I was entitled to a month’s pay, but I am not there for the money, but I am merely doing what I think was right.”
It is a shocking travesty of justice that Francis Puleiwai – who did the right thing – is now in self-imposed exile in New Zealand after threats of legal action were made against her and John Rabuku – who took $100,000 from the Fijian taxpayer he didn’t deserve – is back at Gunu House as Deputy to Nancy Tikoisuva.
No wonder Nancy and the “Crooning Stallion” were in such good spirits at the subsequent ODPP annual conference in November 2024.
The notorious image of John Rabuku and Nancy Tikoisuva in party mode has become a metaphor for a criminal justice system in which proper standards have collapsed in an orgy of self-indulgence, nepotism, mutual enrichment and excess. But worst of all, unlawful conduct on the part of those whose job it is to uphold the rule of law.
There is only one person with the authority to have authorised the $100,000 payment to John Rabuku – Salesi Temo as Chief Justice – the man who has been branded a liar and obstructer of justice by the Supreme Court Commission of Inquiry.
In a breathtaking twist, Temo is currently presiding over the trial of the former attorney general, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, and will decide Khaiyum’s fate on a charge of abuse of office for allegedly providing an unlawful benefit to the former supervisor of elections, Mohammed Saneen. Yet the Chief Justice thinks nothing of providing a payment to someone who was removed from a job that he wasn’t entitled to because of his professional misconduct and was subsequently re-hired, still failing to meet the constitutional requirement that those in judicial positions must be of the highest character.
This is a scandal of the first order. And it is breathtaking that Salesi Temo survives as Chief Justice when yet another nail has been driven into his coffin – giving John Rabuku taxpayer-funded “compensation” when he didn’t deserve compensation because he hadn’t suffered a loss.
That is abuse of office, pure and simple. Yet Temo – the hypocrite already accused of grave criminal conduct in the Malimali affair – sails serenely on and sits in judgment on others. It is proof conclusive that the State, under the Coalition government, has become rotten to the core.
Who knew about this payment? Was the Minister of Finance, Biman Prasad, consulted? Was the Prime Minister consulted? Or did the Chief Justice – who is chronically a law unto himself – simply decide to do it?
What was his motive in giving John Rabuku the money? He clearly didn’t deserve it. Was Temo giving Rabuku a benefit to curry favour with him and buy his loyalty? To have a prosecutor who would be unquestioningly loyal and do his bidding? These are all legitimate questions under the circumstances. And they come into even sharper focus as Salesi Temo presides over the trial of Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
And whose budget did the $100,000 come out of? The JSC’s? The ODPP’s? Or did Biman Prasad authorise a special allocation from the Ministry of Finance? Was the Prime Minister aware of this payment?
We need answers and we need them now. Because this goes to the heart of the integrity of the State, just like the matters raised in the Supreme Court Commission of Inquiry that are being challenged by Salesi Temo in his application for a judicial review seeking to have the CoI overturned.
The Chief Justice has emerged as easily the most dangerous crocodile in the pond – a one-man walking threat to good governance and the rule of law. And the tragedy for Fiji is that he appears to be untouchable.
NOTE TO READERS:
There are a great many previous articles on John Rabuku and the rest of this sorrow gang. Just type his name, or theirs, into the Grubsheet search engine on the right.
UPDATE (TUESDAY OCT 7)
The conduct of Nancy Tikoisuva as she prosecutes the trial of Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum and Mohammed Saneem is conclusive proof that she is unfit to act in the role of the nation’s chief prosecutor in place of the sidelined Christopher Pryde.
Tikoisuva has been overtly political and unable to contain her bias as she makes multiple claims that are simply irrelevant to the case, such as her claim that Saneem was installed as supervisor of elections “to ensure Khaiyum’s political survival” and that the former AG “drafted the 2013 Constitution”. ( As it happens, I was there and he did not. It was drafted by the Solicitor General’s Office).
This case is about whether Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum paid Mohammed Saneem an unlawful benefit and abused his office in doing so. But party girl Nancy just can’t help herself.
And finally a special treat – a photo in the Fiji Sun showing a harassed Biman Prasad in blah,blah, blah mode in the parliament under pressure from the Opposition.
Seriously. If his government partners have stopped listening to the NFP leader, why should anyone else be listening?
When one picture is worth a thousand words, as the old saying goes.
In a free country with freedom of speech, freedom to make up your own law as you go, freedom to be stupid, etc, many make those choices. This is a special entitlement in one’s own land especially after 16 years of vulagi rule. What is more, clearly the Christians of Fiji understand a vulagi religion and vulagi laws much better than anyone else in the rest of the world. More so they have the most independent CJ and the most independent people working in the judiciary . The rest of the world should learn from Fijians.
The question is, was the right amount of tax withheld from this payment? Has anyone asked? Will the JSC or whoever is responsible tell us. Because it is relevant at this point considering the circumstances right now.
Bainimarama was paid his unused leave.
Chaudhry bought his leave days and payed him almost 200k.
And we had a pay mistress in Fiji which to date is a mystery.
Are we seeing anything different here?
All the same except different times.
Totally new set of players but the game is the same, except a few adjustments to the rules.
It is indeed a shocking travesty of justice that Puleiwai is forced into exile for doing the right thing while Rabuku – removed for dishonesty — not only pocketed $100k but is back in the same office.
This is justice Rabuka’s PAP Coalition government style.
The fish rots from the head. So the buck stops with Rabuka. But he doesn’t have the balls to take on Temo. He’s a coward.
For Rabuka, his chief, Naiqama and his cronies like Temo, and relatives like Rabuku come first.
The Tongan chap who introduced Rabuka as Rabaku was correct. It was a Freudian slip.
For Rabaku, voters and taxpayers are right down his list of priorities, including after foreign billionaires like the owner of Fiji Water, who come first.
Either the PM is corrupt or feeble minded, or both. Either way, he is not fit to be the PM if you look at the state or our institutions and the country as a whole.
His deputy prime minister Baiman Prasad is as odious, busy building his own empire under Rabaku’s nose, but the Baku PM is too stupid to notice.
This includes how Baiman and Bastard Richard Naidu set up Rabaku to meet the Fiji Water owner to facilitate the undeserved 7 year tax holiday. If anything is seditious it’s this – selling out the interests of resource owners and the country to a foreign entity — not the opposition leader’s speech about immigration, which Baiman misrepresented in an attempt to intimidate via threat of lawfare. Dogla Baiman is a worse tyrant than Khaiyum.
Unless voters come to their senses and kick this lot out, the country is doomed.
Baku PM has proven that he’s completing the unfinished agenda of 1987. At this stage, nothing else matters for The Snake other than changing the 2013 Constitution. All other issues – rising poverty, HIV AIDS, drugs out of control, law and order breakdown, burgeoning crime, etc – takes a back seat.
I used to have a lot of respect for Richard Naidu but alas, he showed his true colours when as Chair of the Fiscal Review Committee, he pushed for the 7-year tax break for Fiji Water. We no longer see his commentary or opinion pieces in The Fiji Times on the state of the country under the current order.
Indeed, the current thugs need to be booted out. NFP will suffer an electoral bloodbath. As rightly so. It’s up to FLP’s Mahendra Chaudhry and Unity Fiji’s Savenaca Narube to take the fight to PAPI.
In Fiji being corrupt, incompetent, and not suitable for a top position in the civil service gets renumerated handsomely.
It’s usually remunerated, meaning paying someone for services rendered or work down. But you’re right. In this instance, the numbers definitely don’t add up. Renumerated. Getting paid for doing nothing.
Note to Fiji Tax department:
Was this compensation payment to Rabuku by his (former) employer taxable? Income or Fringe Benefit taxable (FBT) ! Was it deducted at source by the payroll dept or repaid by Rabuku while doing a tax return submission at the end of tax year.
The legality or ethics of him being compensated is another matter.
And now watch for the Fijian public responding to this saga generally along partisan lines rather than natural justice and fair play – indigenous supporting Rabuku and Vulagi against. But thankfully there are still both sides of the floor who will see this for what it is – a rort of the system facilitated questionably or illegally.
With Baimaan’s milkman as the CEO of FIRCA nothing will be investigated unless there is a genuine insider information or a whistleblower who can provided the critical informatiin. Even then where do you go for a fair investigation? FICAC? Police or the rogue justice system. Corruption is so much entrenched in Fiji that as I said before elsewhere each corrupt person carries 2 guns pointing to each other. So who will make the move and be the scapegoat.
Nothing that is reported here has shock value anymore. I keep thinking what else will come up next.
Can someone start a list of everything that has happened since December 2022 that has been unethical, illegal and unconstitutional by the 3 legged government.
This should set a mandate for who people should not vote for. Fiji at grassroots level, is not blind and deaf. I would still like to think there’s hope.
Racism has entered the workplace as well in private sectors.
Can Rabuka die already!
If you start a list of the corrupt actions of this govt. you could make a tv series like ‘Days of Our Lives’ which has run in America since the early seventies. You could start it from 14 May 1987 and I would say it’d win some awards !!! Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Can anyone suggest a name for the series?
Which Big Bosso or Big Chief can I approach to get myself compensation for being subjected to such useless, immoral and unethical government.
But I’ll vote for you if I’m successful in getting free money.
Yeah-such is the self interest and short sightedness amongst us.
100k compensation, 3 million mismanagement at ministry of education where despite warnings from PS, the Ministry continued spending. (Fiji Leaks). It’s seems we have alot of Baimans at every turn. Each enriching themselves whilst they can and praying to their God’s each morning as they leave for work to continue stealing. How the ordinary have the strength to continue looking from the sidelines is beyond comprehension. Me I just have very bad anxiety.
3 million or 20+ million?
I read it is over 20 million overspent at Education.
When the majority of ministers in a so-called democratic government are proven corrupt, it reflects the evil in their community. Oh how the once mighty nation of Fiji has fallen.
Just as the majority of the world were once empathic with jews until their leader’s genocidal actions reversed world opinion, so are Fiji’s evil leaders eroding the golden beaches Bula smile Fiji image to one where tourists are afraid to come.
Rabuku was appointed to a position he was not qualified for.
Therefore, he should be required to refund all the salary and other benefits he received from his unlawful appointment. Plus interest.
It is simply outrageous that when he was let go from a position that he should never have been appointed in the first place, he was paid a huge sum of $100, 000. This payment should be investigated by FICAC/Auditor General to determine why this payment was necessary and who authorised this, and the guilty should be subject to a surcharge.
Fiji is unable to pay its way; its budget is supplemented by Grants-in-Aid by Australian and NZ taxpayers to the tune of millions. They need to review how their grants are being spent. These kinds of payments need to stop and the guilty prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
GD your time, effort and energy in holding to account the scandal prone and lawless elements in what passes for Fiji’s government is appreciated.
The Coconut Republic – where us coconuts roll along.
No more drinking home brew under the mango tree.
Instead swilling kava behind our pedo prez.
World news on the sharing of needles and blood in Fiji, while the corrupt elite are reported here on GS about plundering wealth.
Fiji’s HIV cases surge due to bluetoothing, chemsex and needle-sharing https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0m42dwvlk8o
Needle and Exchange Programme will lead to even more mental cases later on due to drug addiction.
The needle and Exchange program in Australia and NZ has dropped the HIV rates but the drug trade and drug use has ballooned and make the drug trade there hugely profitable. Those two countries in Australia and New Zealand has one of the lucrative markets for drug use in the world due to the police forces there not charging people for having small amounts of illicit drugs in their possession.
If a government official is falls short in his payment to Tax Department than government pays on his or hers behalf.
Is that how it works in Fiji.
I can wholeheartedly assure you that Charlie long loaf Charters will not react to this.
And all the while the rich are getting richer, corruptly feathering their nests and the poor get poorer . Its only when the majority are living in abject poverty that they may start blaming the government or will they carry on with blind support ?
The silence from the Fiji Law Society and its president, re-elected on a landslide, according to his needy best friend Charlie ‘Fatboy’ Charters, is deafening. All of a sudden the cat’s got Willy Whylie Clarke’s tongue.
Will Charlie do an investigative piece on Sailesi Temo? Just as he did on Ashton-Lewis? There’s plenty of material there. No he won’t. He’s just a limp dick with a white saviour attitude pretending to be a good governance crusader.
The worst decision Fiji made was to gain independence. Now we have a bunch of politically and ethically uncivilized lunatics running the country.
Anti-corruption advocate and ex-Fiji First party candidate, Joseph Veramu, famously said following the exit of Frank and Aiyaz in 2023, “This is not the end of the road for Fiji First. It is just the end of the road for dictatorial leaders.”
Given the ongoing deterioration in the country’s political climate just as we have been reading exclusively on GS, as well as Joseph’s comments in the story link below, we look forward to Fiji’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2025 by Transparency International.
Incidentally, TI in just 2023 had the following to say about us. “Fiji is the highest scoring Pacific country, in part due to the valuable work of FICAC. As one of the few countries in the region with a national anti-corruption agency, Fiji stands up as a model for others – successes that must be built upon, not reversed.”
Things have changed dramatically with the reemergence of that “dictatorial leader” from 1987, let alone the current crop of leaders and senior officials at FICAC, ODPP and the Judiciary and media industry. Then, of course, the elephant in the room – COI. So we simply can’t wait for our next corruption index. But please TI, this must come ASAP and certainly before the next elections.
Floor crossers, turncoats and former (vulagi) advocates of leadership transparency like Richard Naidu, Wylie Clarke, William Parkinson, Charlie Charters et al. can be expected to detest our forthcoming and usually robust corruption index.
https://www.transparency.org/en/press/transparency-international-supports-fiji-independent-commission-against-corruption
Nancy Tikoisuva’s recent comment that Mohammed Saneem was not qualified to be Supervisor of Elections and was appointed only to advance Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum’s political interests is both irrelevant and hypocritical. What does this have to do with the current case? In fact, Saneem’s qualifications and experience far outweighed Nancy Tikoisuva’s own for her controversial appointment as Acting Director of Public Prosecutions.
The truth is, the Office of the DPP is now filled with individuals whose competence and credibility are deeply questionable. None of the top officials appear qualified for the posts they occupy, and several are tainted by serious allegations already documented in the Commission of Inquiry report.
If reports are accurate that Chief Justice Salesi Temo authorized a $100,000 payout to John Rabuku—a man deemed unqualified to hold a constitutional office due to his record—then Temo must be called to account.
Why should taxpayers be forced to fund a payout to someone declared unfit for public office? This reeks of favoritism, corruption, and moral decay within the justice system itself.
What is unfolding under the leadership of Temo, Rabuka, and Naiqama is nothing short of daylight robbery—an assault on public trust and the rule of law. As long as these three remain at the helm, Fijians should not expect fairness, stability, or justice in their own country.
And beyond this trio, the broader Cabinet is a gallery of failure and deception.
We have an appeaser and habitual liar in Biman Prasad; a characterless and confused Lynda Tabuya; an incompetent Siromi Turaga; a sugar minister Charan Jeath Singh who lies more than he delivers; a utopian dreamer Kamikamica who boasts about non-existent investments; a blind tourism minister Gavoka who greenlighted a religious charter flight without full payment; an Employment Minister Agni Deo Singh who worries more about Fijians working overseas than those struggling at home; a Social Welfare and women’s Minister Sashi Kiran who only highlights problems without offering a single practical solution.
The rest of the Cabinet isn’t even worth mentioning.
This government has become the embodiment of desperation, hypocrisy, and incompetence. The question every Fijian should now ask is simple — where is Fiji really heading under such reckless and self-serving leadership?
One grandfather gets life for raping a special needs granddaughter under his care – rightfully so.
While another dinosaur and pedophile qualifies to be Speaker and President for a similar offence. Everything is swept under the carpet. Both were proud moments and full of glory – when appointed Speaker and then President. The Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre and Fiji Women’s Rights Movement and other NGOs were all complicit as no one spoke up. The more important thing, I guess, was to ensure the previous mob was gotten rid of and not the welfare of this special needs child. And here we all are today.
The more dodgy you are, the more suited you are to be appointed to high office. It must be a cultural and traditional thing.
https://fijilive.com/grandfather-gets-life-sentence-for-raping-girl-with-special-needs/
Our chiefs come from god – do not forget that!
Does not matter where they cum they are still our chiefs.
Our vunivalu was pictured perving at the models at fashion week and then the object of his leering declined his offer.
I know, the vulagis will never understand these things.