The current doctor issue here in Fiji. 

From a blogger:

I wish to bring some attention to the current doctor issue here in Fiji. 

Dr Neil Sharma (who has carried out many, many abortions in his private clinic and is our very own Dr Death) has made a Medical and Dental Practitioner Decree 2010 that has one purpose: Make it very difficult for government doctors to leave government service and join private practice. 

He made this decree with the help of his close friend Dr Wahid Khan (Bayly Clinic, Suva) and some other Indian private doctors. 

Dr Sharma's friends were getting sick and tried of competing with the new, younger, brighter MBBS graduates coming out of FSM who were leaving government service after 2 or 3 years to set up their own private practice. 

More private doctors would mean more competition for the existing Indian private doctors and definitely a major drop in income. So they came up with this decree to protect their financial interests. 

For the satisfaction of greed of just a handful of Indian private doctors a decree has been made by Dr Neil Sharma that hurts hundreds of other doctors of Fiji. 

The general public needs to wake up and take notice of this action. The doctors of Fiji are being victimized by a handful of corrupt Indian private doctors and it is reaching boiling point.

FIJIANS SPEAK OUT AGAINST EMERGENCY LAWS
By Philippa McDonald, ABC
Updated March 7, 2012, 1:22 pm

Prominent Fijians have spoken out against the Pacific island's military dictatorship three months after Frank Bainimarama lifted emergency laws.

Fiji has been in the grip of a military dictatorship for the past five years. Although emergency laws were lifted in Commodore Bainimarama's New Year's Eve address, the situation for those who oppose the interim government remains tough.

One of the Methodist Church's most senior leaders in Fiji has spoken out about life under the Bainimarama regime, while two former MPs charged with treason-related offences have also talked exclusively to the ABC.

The emergency laws saw the placement of censors in Fiji's newsrooms and restrictions on public meetings.

But Reverend Tavita Banivanua says the interim government has continued to undermine the Methodist Church, which enjoys close ties with the island's indigenous population.

"We have been stopped from doing our annual conference for three years already and we have been stopped from doing our other meetings, so an attempt I believe was made to try and weaken the Methodist Church," he said.

Reverend Banivanua is on the executive of Fiji's Methodist Church Assembly. He is one of the few able to speak out.

Several of the church's other senior members are facing charges of attending unauthorised meetings during the country's emergency rule.

"We have already appeared in court for more than 30 times probably," he said.

"It has been very long for the church. The church said that we stand for justice and we'll always do that."

Expression without fear

Commodore Bainimarama says the lifting of emergency laws will pave the way towards a return to democracy in September 2014.

But at the same time a public order amendment decree was introduced which many say is more punitive than martial law.

The executive director of Fiji's Women's Rights Movement, Virisila Buadromo, says the new decree grants wider unfettered powers to the police and the military.

"We ourselves need to hold the state accountable. We need to tell the state that you've said that we're going to have elections in 2014. We want to see that process happen as well," she said.

"However, we would like to see that process to be a legitimate process and for us that means a process that is supported by the people, that's driven by the people.

"For that process to be genuine there needs to be the lifting of or the repealing of certain laws which are limiting people's ability to be able to express themselves openly and without fear."

Fiji's interim attorney-general, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, denies any such restrictions are in place.

"The reality is that there is nobody stopped from making comments about the government under the rules that prevail in Fiji," he said.

"So in terms of the undermining of person's right to speak obviously is misplaced."

Airport arrests

But Fiji's Trade Union Congress president Dan Urai, a former MP, disagrees with the attorney-general.

The 52-year-old was arrested in November and was kept in a cell for 10 days without access to a lawyer before being charged with urging political violence.

If convicted he faces life in prison.

"People are afraid to speak out in this country. Decrees have insured that the fear continues with people. They are still scared," he said.

"I landed into Nadi airport on the Saturday morning. There is a police officer waiting for me, telling me they wanted to see me at the police station in the airport.

"When I asked what was I taken in for, the only reply I got was, all this came from the top. Our job is to come and arrest you."

Mere Samisoni, one of Fiji's most successful businesswomen, is another former MP facing a hefty prison term.

Ms Samisoni, 73, was held in a cell for five days, at the same time Commodore Bainimarama was announcing an end to marshal law.

"I didn't expect it. I was coming off the plane and I was approached by the police and the lady superintendent, the lady inspector, Lorraine, she just said that very quietly 'we are arresting you and you will have to come with us'," she said.

"It came as a shock but I contained myself.

"I believe in freedom. I believe in democracy and I believe in the right of human beings to make their choices and at the moment that is just being violated."

Interim attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says no-one is being specifically targeted by the military regime.

IQ check by Jon Fraenkel on Frank Bainimarama “We’ve had lots of evidence to suggest this, that he doesn’t seem to quite know where he’s going with the whole thing.”

Plans for Bainimarama’s Fiji are vague, says academic

Posted at 04:50 on 06 March, 2012 UTC

An Australia-based academic Jon Fraenkel says a recent interview with Fiji regime leader Commodore Frank Bainimarama is further evidence he has no clear plans for Fiji’s promised constitutional review and elections.

The interim Prime Minister has given a rare interview to a foreign journalist, in which he agreed he might stand in elections, promised for 2014.

He also said he did not know what form the elections set for 2014 would take but he presumed Fiji would continue where it had left off.

He also said anyone could stand in the elections and there would be equal suffrage.

Dr Fraenkel says the Commodore appeared reticent and goaded into replies by his interviewee.

“The only interesting thing in the interview really that he said himself was that he’s not really sure what he’s doing. On the issue of specific new institutional provisions proposed for this constitutional review, Bainimarama is quite clear. We’ve had lots of evidence to suggest this, that he doesn’t seem to quite know where he’s going with the whole thing.”

Dr Jon Fraenkel of the Australian National University

News Content © Radio New Zealand International           PO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

Ratu Tevita speaks out against Fiji leader, Commodore Bainimarama
Updated 7 March 2012, 11:11 AEST

Click here to listen

Exiled former senior Fiji military officer, Ratu Tevita Mara has lashed out at interim prime minister Frank Bainimarama's handling of the situation in his home country.

Ratu Tevita was also critical of Commodore Bainimarama's accusations that Australia and New Zealand have neglected the Pacific Islands.

The comment was initially directed at the former Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd.

But in a recent interview when he was pushed on the issue he claimed "We're not here to play ball with Australians in terms of our constitution and our election dates. This is for Fiji and for Fijians. Whatever they want is secondary to what we've got planned… "

Ratu Tevita spoke to Geraldine Coutts about what he sees as Commodore Bainimarama's true intentions for Fiji and the upcoming details to be announced for public consultations for formulating a new Fiji Constitution.
In May 2011 Ratu Tevita was forced to flee Fiji after being charged with mutiny and accused of attempting to overthrow Bainimarima's government.

Presenter: Geraldine Coutts, Radio Australia
Speakers: Ratu Tevita Mara, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, Fiji's interim prime minister

Click here to listen

Chief on the Run

By Rory Callinan Sunday, Dec. 10, 2006

TIME MAGAZINE

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1568506,00.html#ixzz1oC1Joub3

For months before he appointed himself President and put Fiji's elected leaders under house arrest, military commander Frank Bainimarama had been threatening to stage a coup unless Laisenia Qarase's government abandoned plans to pardon those behind the abortive coup and mutiny of 2000. But some in Fiji say Bainimarama, who during the mutiny narrowly escaped assassination by rebel troops, has another motive: ending a police probe into the killings of four soldiers from the mutinous special-forces unit.

"It's cold-blooded murder," says Ana Kalounivale, "and that's what Bainimarama is running away from." The 37-year-old widow says Bainimarama must bear some responsibility for the bashing deaths of her husband and three other special-forces soldiers. If he did not order or know about the killings at the time, she believes, then he failed to properly investigate them afterward. "Now we don't know if we will ever have justice," says the mother of four.

The commander has repeatedly denied any responsibility for the deaths of Selesitano Kalounivale, Jone Davui, Epineri Bainimoli and Lagani Rokowaqa. "I never gave any orders to kill," he said in 2003. However, in the weeks before the coup Bainimarama was under increasing pressure over the murders. Police probes and court actions by victims' families and surviving soldiers could have seen him suspended, forced to give evidence about the killings, and potentially facing charges and a six-figure compensation claim against the Fiji Military Force.

During the mutiny by members of the elite Counter-Revolutionary Warfare unit, three loyalist soldiers were shot and—in an experience which some officers say has haunted him ever since—Bainimarama was hunted by armed rebels through a jungle-choked valley behind Suva's Queen Elizabeth Barracks. After the barracks were retaken, loyalists rounded up CRW soldiers regardless of whether they had taken part in the mutiny. Selesitino and the other soldiers allegedly fell victim to a violent paroxysm of revenge.

Among Bainimarama's increasingly peremptory demands to the Qarase government were the shutting down of the police investigation into the murders and the removal of Fiji's Police Commissioner, Andrew Hughes. The day after the coup, Dec. 7, Bainimarama sacked Hughes, who had already left the country after death threats to his family, and appointed Army intelligence chief Jim Koroi as acting Police Commissioner. Next day his soldiers took in for questioning six former CRW soldiers, alleging that they could foment civil unrest.

In the past year, Bainimarama and the military had been fighting four separate legal actions. Three were lodged by former CRW soldiers who survived beatings in 2000. The fourth was a compensation claim by Ana Kalounivale, who successfully sued the Commander and the government for worker's compensation over her husband's death but has yet to receive any money.

In a hearing last April, the court was told that after he was first picked up, Selesitino had a 30-minute meeting with Bainimarama and was then taken to the local police station on the Commander's orders. He was later taken from the station by four or five soldiers. Acquaintances of his told the court they were working in a building next door to the police station when soldiers arrived with Selesitino. They said they heard him crying out for help as he was driven away in a military vehicle. According to the judgment of Magistrate Ajmal Gulab Khan, "He was on the floor of the van and bystanders could hear swearing, hitting with rifle butts and kicking at the back of the tray." Around midnight, his hideously injured body was delivered to the morgue.

Magistrate Khan found that "the assaulting soldiers may have exceeded in the scope of their duty by assaulting the deceased, but they acted as soldiers of FMF and were responsible for their actions in the general scope of their duties." He awarded Ana Kalounivale $24,000, but she says the military is appealing the judgment.

The FMF has never explained where the soldiers took Selesitino or why he was singled out. But documents lodged in support of civil lawsuits by the three CRW soldiers who survived beatings give a chilling insight into what might have happened. The soldiers "seized me at gunpoint and handcuffed my hands behind my back," said Sergeant Viliame Lotawa of the night he was taken from the police station. "I was punched, kicked and beaten with blunt objects such as rifle butts and iron rods. I was beaten all the way to [Queen Elizabeth Barracks]." Lotawa says his attackers included a former Fijian rugby international, Sergeant Jack Komaitai. Komaitai told Time last week there was no truth to the allegation. Another survivor, Metuisela Railumu, told the court he was taken by soldiers to a shooting range and "beaten with wood and iron rods all over my body." The case of the third survivor, Barbados Mills, is due to go to trial early in 2007.

All three suits include Bainimarama as a defendant, charging that as military commander he was responsible for the actions of his troops. Police have interviewed 12 soldiers about the bashings, but the military has reportedly insisted that a senior officer attend all interviews; in at least one case, the officer prematurely terminated the interview. When Time put Lotawa's allegations to Bainimarama's spokesman, Major Neumi Leweni, he said, "Who told you that?" He has since refused to speak to the magazine.

Police have told Time the military conducted its own investigation, under the supervision of then officer Jack Koroi, Bainimarama's hand-picked new acting Police Commissioner. None of the alleged perpetrators named by Lotawa and his fellow survivors has faced any military trial or disciplinary hearing. Police are unhappy about Koroi's appointment. Says one officer, who asked to remain anonymous: "Koroi knows what to look for in the files. He's a former Criminal Investigations Department officer and he was the point of contact up at the barracks for people wanting to interview soldiers in the past." Contacted by Time last week, Koroi said of the police investigation, "[The suspects in the bashings] have all been questioned but they have decided to stay mute. There is a lot of difficulties with this. I have to see the file before I comment." Since leaving Fiji, sacked Police Commissioner Hughes, an Australian, has said one reason for the coup was self-preservation on Bainimarama's part. "He's been resistant to the investigation into the murder of the Counter-Revolutionary Warfare soldiers in 2000," Hughes told ABC News. "We believe he has some questions to answer in that regard himself." Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer shares Hughes' view. "I think, in particular, Commodore Bainimarama is deeply concerned about investigations by the police into the Fiji military itself," he told ABC Radio.

A senior Fiji police officer tells Time he and his colleagues have new evidence suggesting some of the "top [military] brass ordered the actions." Now, he says, they are bracing for the day when soldiers march in and remove their files. But "We've got copies," he says. "We won't give up." Ana Kalounivale may get justice yet.

Regimes Lies Exposed :

• In Nov 2011 the illegal AG announced Voter Registration would start in Jan 2012 nothing happened in Jan and Feb. 
• In Feb, under educated illegal PM said constitution consultation would begin in Feb but nothing happened.
• The Regime has lost count of its lies over 5 years now which could be 18,250 plus based on 10 lies a day for five years......

Fiji regime misses own deadline on constitution consultation
Posted at 01:39 on 01 March, 2012 UTC

Fji’s military regime has missed a deadline for the beginning of consultations on a new constitution.
The interim Prime Minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, was due to announce details of the consultation in the fourth week of February.

An announcement was delayed because of flooding in January, but Commodore Bainimarama told diplomats last month that consultation would start by the end of February.

The information ministry said he would provide details about the timeframe and methodology of the consultation process.

The CEO of the Citizens Constitutional Forum, the Reverend Akuila Yabaki, says it is disappointing the deadline has been missed.

“If there’s a vacuum, then it gives us an opportunity to make people aware, that their contributions are vital, and doing some civic education in preparation for it. But this extensive programme should also continue.”
Reverend Akuila Yabaki.

Repeated requests for information about the process put to the Ministry of Information’s Permanent Secretary, Sharon Smith Johns, have gone unanswered.

News Content © Radio New Zealand International
PO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

REGIME FACES ACID TEST FROM 2013...
TAX INCOME TO FALL!!

IMF predicts Fiji would face very serious fiscal crisis due to unsustainable fall in government revenue from 2013.

Sources within Ministry of Finance and RBF ponder Devaluation of the Fiji dollar or further increase in Vat to 17.5% to keep the regime afloat..........


Fiji's Tax Cuts Under IMF Microscope
by Mary Swire, Tax-News.com, Hong Kong,
28 February 2012

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that while Fiji's recent budget was particularly growth-friendly, the tax changes could threaten the revenue base and therefore further offsetting measures may be required to ensure deficit targets are met going forward.

“The reduction in marginal tax rates are important measures that could boost competitiveness and support growth, but they entail a significant fiscal cost," the IMF said in its annual review of the Fijian economy. "That cost is partially masked in 2012 by a bringing forward of corporate tax collections from 2013, as well as the fact that the rate cuts are felt for only part of the year. Starting in 2013, however, staff project revenues to be markedly lower. The authorities’ revenue projections seem overly optimistic, and while there could be some under-execution of the capital budget, deficit targets would be difficult to achieve without further fiscal movement."

The 2012 Budget, announced in November last year, included an 8% cut in corporate tax to 20% and substantial cuts in personal income tax for the majority of taxpayers. These tax cuts are to be partially offset with a new levy on top earners, a broadening of the 5% Hotel Turnover Tax to cover restaurant and other services, increases in the departure tax and tobacco and alcohol excises, and new levies on telecommunications, credit cards, insurance, and luxury cars.

In its recommendations, the IMF advocated that discretionary tax concessions should be curbed to boost revenues.

“Tightening the scope for discretionary concessions would make the system more transparent and create fiscal space for well-targeted investment incentives. While the authorities had no disagreement, the 2012 budget unfortunately contained no steps in this direction. Base broadening for the VAT and income tax would also be desirable to offset the reduction in marginal rates," the Fund concluded.