Response to the President's Address By Mahendra P. Chaudhry, FLP
Parliamentary Leader on 7 August 2003
(Posted 8 August, 2003, 14:00)
Mr. Speaker, I thank His Excellency the President for
his address to this new session of Parliament.
Sir, the office of the President embodies in it the
honour, dignity, and the aspirations of our nation and her people. The
office symbolises the basic tenets on which our nation is founded: not
least of which is respect for the constitution and the rule of law.
Indeed, Section 85 of the Constitution confers on the
President the executive authority of the State. Section 86 proclaims the
President as the Head of State and a symbol of the unity of the State
while Section 87 makes him the Commander in Chief of the military forces.
I am saddened Sir, that recent events going back some
two years, if not more, have shaken the confidence of many of us in this
high office. I say this with good reason and without any intention of
denigrating the present incumbent in the person of His Excellency Ratu
Josefa Iloilo Uluivuda.
I want it clearly understood that I am referring to the
office and not the person holding the office because I wish to point out
how this high executive office can be manipulated by self serving people
to further their own agenda.
I refer Mr. Speaker to the several judicial
pronouncements on constitutional matters that have questioned decisions
taken by the President's office in the handling of Fiji's political and
constitutional crisis since May 2000. These rulings have categorically
pronounced a number of decisions taken by the President's office as
unlawful, unconstitutional and illegal.
I refer in particular, Sir, to:
- My unlawful dismissal in March 2001 as the
democratically elected Prime Minister of Fiji
- The appointment of a puppet prime minister for 24
hours in order to dissolve a democratically elected Parliament
- The unconstitutional appointment of a person as prime
minister to head an interim administration
- And after the 2001 general elections, the
- swearing in of an unconstitutional and unlawful
cabinet
- the rejection by the President's office of the four
Senate nominees of the Labour Leader on the advice of the Leader of
Opposition whose own appointment was questionable
There have been other instances, Sir, where the
President's office is reported to have interfered with the proper
functioning of the rule of law in relation to cases pertaining to the
terrorist takeover of Parliament in 2000 and the army mutiny in November
of that year.
I stated earlier that the President's office stands as a
symbol of law and order in our country. The integrity of that office must
at all times be unquestionable. It must not be blemished or tainted in any
way with decisions that defy the supreme law of the land or show
partiality to one political group or another, in defiance of the
Constitution.
Mr. Speaker, Sir, I am of the firm conviction that His
Excellency the President was given wrong legal advice on all these
matters. His advisers on the matters I have just mentioned, have,
regrettably, brought ridicule and disrepute to the President's office and
used it to further their own agendas.
I have no doubt, that it was a clear conspiracy on the
part of his advisers to deprive many of our citizens of their
constitutional and legal rights.
The lesson from all this, Sir, is that we must ensure
that the President gets quality advice from the best qualified people
because in the dignity and integrity of his office lies the dignity of our
nation. The President's advisers on constitutional issues with which the
government of the day itself is embroiled, must come from independent
sources and not the Attorney General who is a political appointee of the
government of the day or civil servants who are pawns in the hands of
their political masters.
If the highest office in the land cannot function
according to the rule of law, how then can we decry the lawlessness that
has become rampant in the lower levels of our society?
A Justice of the High Court made it very clear while
ruling on the unconstitutionality of the President's actions that in doing
what he did the President had in fact "consolidated or strengthened
the usurpation of democracy" that had taken place with the coup of
May 2000.
Nor could such action be justified on the grounds of
necessity as some have tried to do. On this issue, the High Court ruled,
and I quote:
"I find there was no constitutional impasse
or paralysis. The situation facing the President was difficult, awkward
and embarrassing. If carefully canvassed there would have been several
lawful ways out of the problem without veering off the Constitution and
away from democracy…"
It is our duty as leaders of the nation to ensure that
the office of the President is never compromised again in this manner.
THE SUGAR INDUSTRY
Mr. Speaker, I would now like to speak on a few other
matters of significant national concern. I refer first to the desperate
state of the sugar industry.
We all know where the problem lies. We have said time
and again that the sick man in the industry is the Fiji Sugar Corporation.
It is technically insolvent. Except for 1999, the FSC has registered
significant losses each year since 1997. It just announced another
substantial loss of $16 million for the year ended March 31, 2003.
Yet Mr. Speaker, this same FSC was not very long ago a
lucrative organisation, running profitably and efficiently. The sugar
industry was Fiji's pride. What has since gone wrong? Why is it that for
the past seven years, with the exception of 1999, the corporation has been
making massive losses? If FSC could make profits under the stewardship of
Rasheed Ali and the Hon Jonetani Galuinadi, why can't it now?
FSC Profit/Loss Table
Let me give some figures to illustrate the point I am
making:
Year
Profit/Loss Tonnes
Crushed Sugar made
$
m
m
(000)
1987
19.2
2.96
401
1988
23.0
3.18
363
1989
15.3
4.09
461
1990
29.7
4.02
408
1991
11.6
3.38
389
1992
9.4
3.53
426
1993
16.3
3.70
442
1994
9.3
4.06
517
1995
18.1
4.11
454
1996
13.0
4.38
454
1997
(2.0)
3.28
347
1998
(11.1)
2.09
256
1999
3.0
3.96
377
2000
(5.3)
3.79
341
2001
(20.9)
2.81
293
2002
(13.6)
3.10
295
2003
(15.7)
3.4
330
FSC's accumulated losses now stand at $70 million. Its
cash flow situation is so bad it needed government assistance to buy this
season's cane. Last year government wrote off a $34 million loan to the
corporation and further facilitated $75 million in loan funds from the ANZ
Bank to keep the FSC operating.
Who do we blame, Sir, for this deteriorating state of
affairs in the Corporation? The blame lies squarely with FSC's board and
management, and the government. Let us be honest. The rot set in after
1987 with the politicisation of FSC following the two coups.
Appointments to the board, and to senior management
positions began to be made on political considerations rather than merit.
Frustrated, many of the experienced senior managers, engineers and
tradesmen left.
We are now faced with the sad situation where the
corporation is headed by an expatriate, his chief advisers are expatriates
on fat salary packages who treat the local staff with disdain and are not
prepared to listen to sound advice from them. Indeed, FSC has taken a
retrograde step… it has gone backwards.
Mr. Speaker, the problem is not lack of capital
investment. It is lack of competence - financial mismanagement, mal
administration and lack of expertise. FSC has had $150 million of capital
investment in the past few years. One is entitled to ask: where has this
money gone?
The four sugar mills are now in a worse state than ever.
The Lautoka Mill, for example, had $10 million capital investment in a new
C² mill just the other year. Despite this, the mill's performance in the
2002 season was its worst ever. It faced a chronic problem of mill
breakdowns and its crushing capacity fell from a norm of 50,000 tonnes a
week to 33,000 tonnes.
For the 2002 season, the Lautoka Mill registered 38
hours per week of mill stoppages due to mechanical problems. As a result
of this, its crushing season extended into February 2003 with huge losses
to the industry as a whole.
At season's end, farmers were left with a massive
standover crop of over 342,000 tonnes which equates to a loss of 38,000
tonnes of sugar worth around $20 million.
70% of this loss is borne by the farmers - so it means
that they lost $14 million in revenue or, taken on an average, $800 per
farmer.
Not too long ago, the four mills had no problems
crushing 4 million tonnes of cane in a season, sometimes more. Now they
can't even crush a reduced crop of 3 million tonnes within optimum time.
This is a revealing statement on the current state of the factories.
The mills are suffering from serious extraction/recovery
problems. The TCTS ratio ( tonnes cane taken to produce one tonne of
sugar) for all mills has been appalling. The national TCTC ratio has now
deteriorated to double digit figures compared to what it was in 1997 and
earlier years when, on an average, it took around 8.5 tonnes of cane to
make a tonne of sugar.
The Lautoka Mill last year registered a TCTS of 1:11
which means on an average the mill took 11 tonnes of cane to produce a
tonne of sugar. Early in the 2003 season, Lautoka was showing a TCTS ratio
of 1:15 - this is totally unacceptable and means millions of dollars lost
to both the farmers and FSC.
We are reliably informed that huge volumes of cane juice
are being lost through overflows in all the mills because of failure to
turn them into crystals fast enough.
This is again a huge monetary loss to the industry. FSC
is trying to blame the farmers and the poor quality of cane being supplied
for its deteriorating TCTS ratio. This is a gross lie. FSC is pushing the
blame for its own incompetence and inefficiency on the growers.
Mr. Speaker, as long as the industry and the government
is not prepared to put the blame squarely where it belongs, there can be
little hope for the survival of the sugar industry. FSC must acknowledge
its shortcomings and do something about it.
We are convinced that the problem lies with FSC's board
and management. FSC lacks financial discipline. It lacks corporate
discipline. Hence, its chairman and chief executive must go as a
prerequisite to salvaging the corporation.
Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I admit there are of
course other problems facing the industry which also need to be tackled.
The chief among them is the issue of land tenure and long term security
for farmers. This needs a political solution and in turn hinges on the
success of the current negotiations between the Prime Minister and myself
on the issue of a multi-party Cabinet.
One other problem I wish to highlight is that the size
of harvesting gangs are becoming too unwieldy to be effective. The big
gangs are a major contributing factor to the inefficiencies that have
crept into the harvesting programme.
Furthermore, they are a major cause of cane burning.
This is also related to milling problems. When gangs are stood down as a
result of mill breakdown, they resort to burning to ensure jobs and
incomes for themselves.
Growers would prefer to go back to the previous
arrangement where farmers used to organise their own gangs to carry out
harvesting.
There is also the problem of declining cane yield. Our
average crop has shrunk from more than 4 million tonnes to 3 million or
less. This is directly related to insecurities over land tenure and
uncertainties about the future of the sugar industry.
It must be accepted that farmers are losing confidence
in the future of the industry and consequently, their own future in the
industry.
Their children are not interested in cane farming
because it is no longer a lucrative enterprise. They are able to make more
money in paid employment or doing small businesses of their own.
Unless steps are taken now to restore confidence in the
future of cane farming, the industry would simply disappear through
natural attrition.
Sir, we have given enough warnings about what needs to
be done. It is time government is prepared to bite the bullet. It must
recognise that unless it has the approval of farmers and mill workers to
whatever changes it hopes to bring about, the industry will not survive.
It is no use whipping the farmer and the mill worker when the real culprit
is the FSC.
One other point, Fiji's economy is still heavily reliant
on sugar for its good health. It is still the single largest employer, it
is still the single largest earner of net foreign exchange. Its importance
in terms of the multiplier effects of the sugar dollar cannot be
understated. Close to a quarter of our population depend on the sugar
industry, either directly or indirectly, for their well being.
Sir, this country has no choice for the present but to
ensure the survival of the industry. And to do that, government needs the
co-operation of the farmers and the mill workers. It is obvious that for
the past two years they have been floundering around, without any clear
direction on how to go about dealing with this critical question.
Government is floundering Sir, because its industry
restructure programme is driven by the FSC for its own survival. FSC seeks
to do this by strangling the farmer and the mill worker, by robbing them
of their fair share of industry proceeds.
This will never work. The farmers and mill workers will
not go back to being slaves like they were in the CSR days. Just as in any
other commercial set up, they want a fair return for their labour.
Progress can only be made if the FSC board and its
expatriate management goes. The justification for them to be immediately
terminated is the balance sheet of the FSC for the past three years.
If government wants to succeed with a restructure of the
industry, it must talk to organisations that genuinely represent the
stakeholders in the industry. On the farming side, government must learn
to deal with the organisation which has the clout, not the impotent
elements.
It is time, Sir, the Minister for Sugar called a meeting
of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Sugar to meet with them and
obtain their views on the best way to deal with the problem.
My advice to government is that it must deal with locals
who have a true understanding of the industry and its problems instead of
flying in expatriate consultants to solve our problems.
MULTI PARTY CABINET CASE
That brings me, Sir, to the current pressing issue of
establishing a multi-party Cabinet.
We now have the pronouncement of the nation's highest
appellate court on this issue. The Prime Minister has an obligation under
Section 99 of the Constitution to invite the Fiji Labour Party into his
Cabinet; to allocate us portfolios in proportion to our representation and
as directed by the Supreme Court, to negotiate in good faith with me as
Leader of the Labour Party on the matter.
Sir, Section 99 of the Constitution is an extremely
well-considered, judicious provision for nation building in our
multi-racial country. It is not there by accident.
It was never designed to be a token gesture but a
genuine attempt to build bridges across our racial divide, to ensure we
can pool our talents as a nation to rebuild our battered economy, to
restore our trust and confidence in our future as one people and to move
forward together in peace and harmony.
The important principle of power sharing in a divided
society must not be sacrificed to mere political whims or to pre-conceived
and baseless fears of political insecurity.
Any visionary leader who truly believes in the principle
of multiracialism would seize it as a challenge to prove the concept can
work in the wider interest of the nation and all its people.
Mr. Speaker, I am therefore disappointed at government's
attitude to power sharing following the Supreme Court decision.
Allow me to elaborate, Sir:
- The Prime Minister has offered the FLP 14 cabinet
positions in a bloated cabinet of 36 - which in effect is just over
half the size of this House.
- The portfolios offered are minor divisions of current
ministries with token staff and resources.
Of the 14 ministries assigned to us, 10 have permanent
staff establishment of less than 15. Of these 10, three have 6 permanent
staff, two have only 3 and, unbelievably, one ministry has only one
permanent staff assigned to the minister, and this minister's sole
function is to oversee the payment of pensions to war veterans!
What a joke, Mr. Speaker!
Budget 2003 expenditure allocations assigned to FLP
ministers come to $33 million or just 2.47% of the total budgeted
expenditure for 2003. However, a more careful examination of this $33
million reveals that about half of it ($16.1 million) is in respect of
Prisons (correctional services) department, $10.4 million and $5.8 million
is taken up by war pension payment to veterans.
The only resources allocated to the new Ministry for
Health Promotion assigned to FLP, are 9 established and 4 unestablished
employees out of a total of 95 established and 5 unestablished employees
belonging to this activity in the 2003 Budget. It, therefore, follows that
the major functions of the Public Health Services activity will be
retained by the substantive SDL health minister.
Likewise, the new ministry of State Properties assigned
to FLP will be resourced by only six established employees, without any
budgetary allocation except their salaries. All other functions in
relation to state properties which are currently shared between the Public
Service Commission, and the ministries of Land and Surveys and Works and
Energy will continue to be vested in those entities with their substantive
SDL/CMV ministers in control.
If this is not tokenism, what is it, Mr Speaker? Are we
not supposed to be seriously negotiating the future of Fiji as a nation?
The Prime Minister appears to think that constituting a
bloated multi-party cabinet with token ministries assigned to the FLP is
sufficient compliance with the Constitution.
I'd like to point out that establishing a multi-party
cabinet does not absolve the prime minister from his duty to adhere to the
principles of good governance and accountability to the tax payers.
I proved in 1999 that taking on board members of a party
with views diametrically opposed to one's own does not necessarily
preclude the workings of a successful cabinet. We worked together
wonderfully as a team.
It goes to show that if national interest is made the
governing criteria, all other differences can be overcome.
In the ultimate, the legitimacy of the Prime Minister's
Cabinet will be determined by his actions. If he negotiates in good faith
and concludes an agreement that is seen to be fair, he will have satisfied
both, the constitutional requirement to negotiate in good faith, and the
expectation of the people that he played by the rules that are fair.
As I have pointed out to the Prime Minister, Fiji is
passing through a phase of prolonged political instability. Most of our
people are experiencing social deprivation brought about by a rapidly
deteriorating economy.
Unemployment and poverty have reached unprecedented
levels. We are losing our skilled and professional workforce to our more
affluent neighbours because of the unstable and insecure conditions
prevailing here.
Our health and education sectors are in serious decline.
Our infrastructure, including the provision of basic necessities such as
piped water, is in a shocking state.
The future looks grim. However, it can be changed. Fiji
has the potential to meet the aspirations of all its people. But these
opportunities will only materialise if we make the power sharing concept
work.
The Prime Minister says he wants to turn Fiji into
another Singapore. Well, that is fine, Sir. But one should realise that
Singapore did not develop from thin air.
Singapore is the result of visionary leadership, prudent
planning, multiracial harmony and adherence to the principles of
meritocracy.
Its leadership took decisive action to clamp down on
corruption and instill social discipline. Lee Kuan Yew's overriding
political principle was that "nothing is for free in this world"
and that "no-one owes anyone a living".
Based on these guiding principles, he moulded his nation
into an extraordinary example of what can be achieved through
determination and discipline.
GOVERNMENT OF NATIONAL UNITY
Mr. Speaker, I did offer the Prime Minister a way out of
his present dilemma by suggesting we opt for a government of national
unity. He has rejected the suggestion.
In my opinion it is the best way forward for our nation
at this time in its development. I had mooted this suggestion to the Prime
Minister in our initial one on one talks in April.
The GNU as proposed by me, would be established under an
agreed charter to which all political parties in Parliament would
subscribe and commit themselves.
By doing so, we would overcome the hurdle of having to
be bound by the policies of the dominant party in government, a situation
which none of us is likely to be too comfortable with.
The charter should focus on advancing Fiji through
national unity, improved race relations and economic and social
development aimed at eradicating poverty and uplifting the quality of life
of our people.
A government of national unity can be established within
the ambit of s 99 and 89 of the 1997 Constitution. The Supreme Court
judgment gave recognition to this as something that would be complementary
to the Constitution and not in opposition to it.
Sir, I am ready to explore all options available to us
in the interest of promoting the welfare of our country and our people.
Fiji cannot remain cacooned within racially exclusive
governments and policies, and hope to progress. The Prime Minister is
fully aware that two years after his elected government took office, our
investment levels remain at a record low, the economy remains stagnant and
the plight of our ordinary people have worsened. Policies adopted by his
government have increased the hardship faced by our poor and
disadvantaged.
Mr. Speaker, Fiji's ranking has fallen sharply in the
United Nation's Human Development Index from 44 in 1995 to a position of
81 in the 2003 report. Even Western Samoa is ranked better than Fiji at
70. There was a time when living standards in Fiji were way ahead of other
Pacific Island states.
This, Sir, is as clear an indictment as any of the sharp
decline in our standards of living in the past few years. What it means is
that our people are dying younger because of declining health care,
increasing poverty and malnutrition and declining living standards.
Die hard nationalists should have learnt their lesson
from the past 15 years - you cannot marginalise 50% of your population,
and an entire ethnic community, and hope to progress.
We are continuing to face sanctions from the
international community until the Prime Minister complies with Section 99
of the Constitution, The Supreme Court has directed that he negotiate in
good faith.
This he is not doing. He is refusing to explore any
possibilities other than throwing token ministries at us.
The Prime Minister, Sir, heads the Ministry of National
Reconciliation and Unity. Regrettably, his conduct in these negotiations
are hardly conducive to achieving the objectives of that ministry.
If we are genuinely talking about national
reconciliation and unity, we will not get a better opportunity than now to
pursue it through a multi-party cabinet.
Finally, Sir, the FLP is a responsible party. We are a
Party that believes in transparency and accountability.
At the end of the day we are all responsible for how we
spend the taxpayers money. After all, we are trustees and guardians of
their interests.
And the acid test here for all of us should be whether
we would do this had it been our money.
Sir, a cabinet of 36 as proposed by the Prime Minister
for the size of our country and legislature, and a struggling economy,
will reduce us to nothing short of a banana republic in the eyes of the
international community.
It is clearly not in the interest of the taxpaying
public and cannot be justified to the nation and to the international
community.
I urge the Prime Minister to rise to the challenge in
true statesmanship style and to explore the best available possibility for
working with us in the interest of our beloved nation.
I would like to conclude, Sir, with a quote from the
Reeves Commission Report that I believe is quite appropriate to our
present plight. You are no doubt aware, Sir, that the report adopted the
theme: Towards a United Future -
Our report entitled The Fiji Islands:
Towards a United Future stresses that the unity of
this nation is a continuous process of discovery and enrichment. In
national as in our daily life nothing remains fixed forever. Progress in a
multi-ethnic society is achieved when its citizens realise that what is
good for their neighbour must ultimately be good for them as well, when
differences and diversity are seen not as sources of division and distrust
but of strength and inspiration.
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