# THE CROOK “MAC” PATEL, HIS CORRUPT RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PM AND HIS CORRUPT NEWSPAPER, THE FIJI TIMES

Finally, a mainstream media outlet, the Fiji Sun, has joined Grubsheet in highlighting the extraordinary circumstances of the granting of a pardon to Mahendra “Mac” Patel – the fugitive “Chairman Emeritus” of the Motibhai group of companies and owners of the Fiji Times.

The Fiji Sun rightly describes it today as “a travesty of justice” that “Mac” Patel received a presidential pardon last week without ever having served his sentence, having been convicted in absentia in 2014 for abuse of office but in the meantime, fleeing to Australia while on bail.

Put simply, it sets a precedent for anyone convicted of a criminal offence in Fiji to escape the arm of the law by fleeing to another country, be a “wanted” person with a bench warrant for their arrest, yet never have to account for their conduct because a friendly government down the track pardons them. “Mac” Patel has lived a life of luxury in Sydney for more than a decade and can now return to Fiji totally unmolested. He still has a criminal record and will just have to wear the tag of “crook”. But he has never faced justice and for the Coalition to “pardon” him when he has never properly been brought to account is a national scandal and yet another full-blown assault on the rule of law.

With each passing day, the conduct of the Prime Minister and his Attorney General, Graham Leung, and their disregard for even the most basic principles of the law just gets worse. Graham Leung was heralded as a “new broom” and came to office after the removal of the lamentable Siromi Turaga publicly pledging to adhere to the rule of law. He is as big a liar as Sitiveni Rabuka and has lost all credibility in the eyes of anyone who believes in the proper conduct of the criminal justice system. (We will have more on Graham Leung in a future article)

But why has “Mac” Patel received special treatment? How has someone who is one of Fiji’s richest men and owns the country’s traditional newspaper of record, the Fiji Times, been able to secure a special privilege from this government that no-one without the same wealth and influence could ever have secured?

The Prime Minister and the AG will make the absurd argument that this was a decision by the Mercy Commission and claim with straight faces that the Commission is independent. It is another lie. As Grubsheet has chronicled over the past few days, the Commission is chaired by the AG, with handpicked appointments and with the constitutional authority to tell the president to free the likes of “Mac” Patel, George Speight, Shane Sevens and the rest. So let’s have no more verbal diarrhoea from this preposterous duo.

At least George Speight and Shane Stevens paid a price for their actions. “Mac” Patel has paid no price at all beyond a big legal bill and having his reputation in ruins. Though no thanks to his own newspaper, which has corruptly buried the news of his pardon in the same way as it has corruptly curried favour with the Coalition to secure the release of its “Chairman Emeritus” and now Saturday columnist.

But let’s just highlight a few facts that rip the veil of legitimacy off this shameless travesty of justice and demonstrates the corruption of this government, its relationship with Mac Patel and the corrupt conduct of the Fiji Times in being a vehicle for Patel to curry favour with the Coalition and secure the pardon that Frank Bainimarama and Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum refused to grant him.

We need to go back 37 years to 1987, and the extraordinary saga that Grubsheet has already revealed of “Mac” Patel giving Sitiveni Rabuka a solid gold Rolex watch in the aftermath of Rabuka’s two coups. Rabuka turned the Rolex into cash. But in accepting the watch, which was clearly to curry favour with the coup leader, Rabuka entered into a corrupt relationship with Patel in which he knew that he would be obligated to him. And that obligation continues to this day.

We have no way of knowing what favours Rabuka dispensed for the Motibhais when he finally became an elected prime minister in the 1990s, though the family retained their duty free concession at Nadi Airport as a monopoly until the Bainimarama regime came to power and finally introduced competition for the travelling public from the Tappoos.

Roll on to 2014, when “Mac” Patel was convicted of abuse of office for his role, as Chair of Post Fiji, in the purchase of a Seiko outdoor clock for the GPO in Suva from one of the Motibhai’s subsidiary companies, Prouds. It was an outrageous betrayal of his duty as chair of a public enterprise and Patel faced a lengthy jail sentence. But while he was on bail, he simply fled Fiji for Australia and has spent more than a decade living in luxurious exile in Sydney, including his reported ownership of an apartment in “The Elan” – one of the emerald city’s most prestigious developments.

So he is a fugitive as well as a crook. And no-one is less deserving of a pardon than Mahendra “Mac” Patel. Grubsheet has recounted being shown a letter by Frank Bainimarama in which “Mac” begged to be able to return to Fiji unmolested. But Bainimarama and his AG, Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum, refused to be bought – insisting that the law must take its course. It is in stark contrast to Sitiveni Rabuka and his “new broom with no bristles” – the tasi pori AG who since his appointment, has trashed his own reputation as a stickler for the rule of law.

It has taken Sitiveni Rabuka’s victory in the 2022 election to change “Mac” Patel’s fortunes. His dream of being able to return to Fiji has been granted. He is a free man. But it has come at a terrible cost for the reputation of Fiji’s criminal justice system. Because Rabuka and Graham Leung have just sent a message to the world that it can be bought. Don’t just take my word for it. Read the editorial in today’s Fiji Sun below.

If there was any chance of the Prime Minister forgetting “Mac” Patel’s present of the gold Rolex, the fugitive crook used his newspaper, the Fiji Times, as a vehicle to curry further favour with Rabuka in the lead-up to Thursday’s pardon announcement. “Mac” suddenly appeared as a Fiji Times columnist – describing himself as “Chairman Emeritus” of the Motibhais, the owners of the paper. It is no coincidence that this is precisely the title that has been adopted by Rupert Murdoch – the global media mogul and former owner of the Fiji Times until he handed it over to the Motibhais when the Bainimarama government imposed new foreign ownership restrictions. Yet there is no way that Murdoch would have used his media outlets so shamelessly without attracting the full force of the regulators.

In recent weeks, among other things, we have seen “Mac” Patel support the Coalition’s plans to change the Constitution. He was obviously greasing the way as Rabuka and Leung considered his pardon application. And this was also an abuse of office – the pretence that Patel and Motibhai have “ownership interests” in the Fiji Times (as his declaration describes it) when it is the sole owner of the paper and “Mac” Patel and family is the “bosso”, telling Editor Fred Wesley what to do.

It is a complete travesty of journalism that “Mac” Patel would write the following about Fred Wesley – a saccharine, oleaginous statement of support and encouragement when the truth is that Fred Wesley does exactly what the Motibhais tell him to do. He is their lackey and has betrayed his role as a journalist by bending the Fiji Times editorial agenda to the wishes of the family.

It isn’t just the paper’s perennially biased news coverage in favour of the Coalition. Fred Wesley has also buried the announcement of the pardon for “Mac” Patel in an obvious ploy avoid the kind of embarrassment for him and the government that is all over today’s Fiji Sun. There was a brief reference to Patel’s pardon on the Fiji Times website but Grubsheet has seen nothing whatsoever in the printed version – the newspaper that most Fijians read – since the announcement last Thursday. This is journalistic corruption, pure and simple. And Fred Wesley is a disgrace.

At the weekend came another journalistic outrage – coverage in the Fiji Times news columns of the launch of the latest range of Seiko watches. It was a naked commercial promotion for Prouds masquerading as news. With a toothless Fiji Media Council, the Motibhais are completely unrestrained and in breach of every accepted media ownership standard in the civilised world.

They bury the embarrassment of the crook who owns them getting a corrupt benefit from a corrupt government and shamelessly promote their own commercial interests. And they rub the faces of the Fijian people in it in a breathtaking “eff you” to everyone. Fancy promoting the new Seiko range of watches in the news columns of their own paper 48 hours after their fugitive owner was pardoned for having foisted a Seiko clock on the nation and abusing his position of trust yet never having to “do the time”.

These people are corrupt, the Coalition is corrupt and the Fiji Times is corrupt. But Seiko or Rolex, time will eventually catch up with all of them. If not at the hands of the toothless watchdogs at FICAC and the Media Council but when the Fijian people finally have their say at the ballot box.

Tick, tick, tick.

Today’s landmark article in the Fiji Sun…

Plus an editorial that lays out the issues in a manner that we rarely see from the mainstream media in Fiji…

The government statement on “Mac” Patel’s pardon that the Fiji Times has yet to publish. It has simply buried the story in the main print edition of the newspaper in a gross act of journalistic corruption and betrayal of the right of the Fijian people to know…

How “Mac” Patel sucked up to the government in the weeks before his pardon was granted, including this article in his own paper supporting the Coalition’s plan to change the Constitution.

The less than full declaration by “Mac” Patel that accompanies his articles…

A shameless promotion for Seiko watches in the news columns of the Fiji Times at the weekend (“National News”) , with no mention that Motibhais own Prouds, as well as the Fiji Times. A conflict of interest and betrayal of all normal journalistic standards that would see media watchdogs in other democratic nations throwing the book at the Motibhais. But not in Fiji.

A Prime Minister compromised ever since he accepted a gold Rolex from “Mac” Patel in 1987. 37 years later, the favour has been called in and the criminal justice system has been shamelessly corrupted.

And where is the Fiji Media Council? Sandwiched around the grinning Deputy Prime Minister with Fred Wesley in the upper left hand corner.

A complete travesty of journalism, the law and every accepted norm in a civilised nation.

And finally, a tip for the Tappoo family. The Rolex and Seiko franchises in Fiji must surely now be up for grabs after the Motibhais have brought the brands into public disrepute. The Swiss and the Japanese are famed for insisting that their treasured products are distributed only by companies of the highest integrity and repute.

Go for it.