Issue No: 1001; 4 August 2001

Today's Fiji Sun reports that the People's Coalition Government had ordered an inquiry into the projects. The inquiry was to begin in June 2000.

The SVT government had begun numerous multi-million dollar projects to computerise government departments. These were called the Accrual Accounting Project, Financial Management Information System (FMIS), Fiji Land Information System (FLIS), Value Added Tax system, Inland Revenue system, and the Y2K bug project. In all, these cost the government well over $30m.

The paper reports that people implicated in the "alleged fraud look like a who's who in Fiji with names of politicians, consultants, accountants, civil servants and business executives". It further states that "internal and external pressures were brought to bear on Government officials involved in the projects, forcing them to abandon prudent financial accounting practices."

The People's Coalition Government had either modified the projects or completely scrapped them when it took office. This resulted in loss of contracts and potential business for some prominent computer companies. It is believed that three major computer companies had become working as a cartel and used to monopolise and share all government business through their connections with government officials and ministers in the SVT regime. A prominent accounting firm is also believed to be involved in the racket. In Parliament, SVT's Finance Minister and alleged coup conspirator, Jim Ah Koy, had claimed that the People's Coalition Government would collapse because of its inability to handle the government's computerisation scheme. He had given the date of early January 2000 for this.