The Fijian Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, has committed the grave offence of misleading the Fijian Parliament with his claim that the government does not tell the Fiji Sun what to put on its front page. It is a lie.
On multiple occasions when I was the government’s principal communications advisor, the AG directed me to contact the publisher of the Fiji Sun, Peter Lomas, and instruct him to put a particular story on the front page. “Tell him to put it on the front page”, he would say and I would telephone Peter Lomas to relay the instruction. I felt uncomfortable doing so because I believed it was inappropriate for the government to give such an instruction to a supposedly independent media organisation. But I did it as part of my duties and do not recall an occasion on which Lomas resisted.
In the light of the AG’s statement to the Parliament on August 18 that no such instruction has been given, I am prepared to attest under oath in a court of law or any other appropriate forum that it is false. I am also aware of, and sometimes witnessed, multiple instances in which the AG gave other instructions to the Fiji Sun to cover certain stories or ignore others. Many of these were conveyed personally by the AG to the Fiji Sun’s News Editor, Jyoti Pratibah. I am also willing to swear on oath that I was informed by Peter Lomas that the AG had instructed him to withhold opinion polling commissioned by the Fiji Sun before the 2018 election that showed the erosion of the FijiFirst vote.
It is contrary to all principles of proper parliamentary conduct that the people’s house should be misled by the Attorney General – the chief law officer of the state, who has responsibility for supervising Fijian law and advising the government on legal matters. The AG’s economy with the truth is a grave violation of his duty to maintain the highest standards of probity in the conduct of his official duties and an assault on democracy that makes him unfit for high office.
For further postings during the period that the main long format Grubsheet site is in recess until closer to the 2022-23 election in Fiji, please go to the Grubsheet page on Facebook for regular short-form commentary on domestic political events.
Graham Davis
August 19 2021
Born Liar who has become serial liar due to the precarious position his FF government are in due to many personal grudges and complete mismanagement for years. Wreaks of utter desperation. Economy is stuffed but they continue to play gutter politics rather than managing a pandemic. Fijians will get a say at the ballot boxes as I’m sure they are tired of being played like a banjo, hoodwinked and gaslighted at every turn. And Fiji sun is not even worthy to wipe my shit let alone having any journalistic integrity. And this is yet another indictment on Frank’s leadership or lack of if AG is the one with the power and Frank just smiles and waves like a penguin from a Disney cartoon.
Time for you to lay it all out Graham. I am sure you must have kept some sort of a diary during your time with the Government.
Lay it all out with evidence and let’s see if he calls you a bluff. This is the only way to fix the AG.
I am hoping you actually have some meat on the bone to show the people of Fiji through actual evidence because as of now it’s your word against him and he ( the AG) knows how to spin everything you say.
Yoh now have nothing to loose.
I am glad you now fully realize that Frank and AG have gone past their useful date and Fiji needs a change , I am also glad that you now realize how flawed this so called democracy is and really not a genuine democracy which you thought it was but I have always reminded you that it is not.
Keep on exposing them and keep speaking truth to power
Well done and Vinaka
Good to know you’re back, GD! You had me worried there, when I’d not had my regular feed of “grub”, thinking you’d been spirited away by angry itaukei men in uniform, & locked in some wretched dungeon 😲!
Let it all out GD, I don’t blame you for your hiatus since you’ve got other things to work on. Government lost the plot a long time ago and they seem to be stuck in wonderland with the yawning amount of baloney coming out of their gluteus maximus.
And I thought Frankie’s stupidity was already a problem, but “smart@$$ kaidia” (as the stooge PM likes to call him) seems to have reached breaking point with that fallacy of a statement. Can see why him and “boyfriend” Frankie look old, frail, and weak that it’s already taking a toll on their brains to even think straight.
They’re running out of lies, ideas (as if they had any), and time in power. Aiyarse is slowly but surely at his depth and his limits are being realized because any smart Fijian has seen the truth all along for years in the Fiji Snub which he foolishly denies.
Still can’t blame the FFP sheeple for sniffing Aiyarse’s rear end though. For all I know, AK-47 can’t always have his cake and eat it too with an economic depression and a pandemic adding insult to injury to the fantasized “Bainimarama Kaboom”….uhm Boom. 😁
Looking forward to more analysis in the build-up to the elections next year.
These guys have destroyed the spirit of democracy in this country. It will us many more years to reconstruct all those good things a parliamentary democracy entails.
But indeed the people of Fiji are not fools.
These guys have destroyed the spirit of democracy in this country. It will take us many more years to reconstruct all those good things a parliamentary democracy entails.
But indeed the people of Fiji are not fools.
Vinaka GD for the article.
From day one they have been lying to us till today.