(B) The Corruption Charges against Former PM Laisenia Qarase

Former PM Laisenia Qarase has been granted a bail variation to allow him to visit family members in Australia but must return to Fiji before his March court hearing. Qarase is charged by FICAC (Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption -- directly accountable to the President so that no one is above the law) with two counts of abuse of office with regards to family share holdings in extinct mataqali funds and shares in Fijian Holdings Limited. http://www.fijihosting.com/pcgov/docs_c/fijian_holdings_fdb_details.htm

Comment. While there can be little doubt that there is a political factor in charging Qarase (how could there not be in the circumstances?), on the face of it there does seem to be a strong case against him.

The main charge is that between 1992-95 when he was a director of Fiji Holdings Ltd (established by the Rabuka government to ensure greater equity participation by provincial councils and Fijian institutions), a member of the Fijian Affairs Board (which had shares in FHL), Managing Director of the Fiji Development Bank, and the financial advisor to the Great Council of Chiefs), he bought 200,000 Class A shares in FHL for his family company Q-Ten Investments, and that in his capacity as director approved the allocation of these shares without declaring his interests to FHL, FAB or the GCC. Other charges related to similar non-disclosures regarding his purchase of shares in two other companies.

Three other related matters, not mentioned directly in the charges, are:
(1) How was it that the FHL, established to assist provincial councils and Fijian instutions, evolved into one where Fijian individuals and private Fijian-owned companies -- that is, the Fijian elite -- became major shareholders?
(2) How did most class A shares (with voting rights and a 10% plus dividend) come to be mostly owned by private interests, while provincial councils and Fijian institutions owned most of class B shares (with no voting rights and less than half the dividend of class A shares)?
(3) Did the Fiji Development Bank, of which Qarase was then Managing Director, lend the money for these purchases, and if so, on what terms, and were provincial councils advised of and offered the same terms?