Issue No: 839; 11 June 2001

In an article published today in the Fiji Sun, Te Karere Opurangi states that the SVT had cultivated a strong of highly corrupt relationship with the local business community and the party's ethnic Fijian backers. Ipurangi states:

"The [SVT] government promoted the development of indigenous businesses, through a web of government patronage, corruption and financing from state-owned banks."

"The pre-eminent representative of this indigenous capitalist layer is Jim Ah Koy, a wealthy Fijian commoner who serve as Rabuka's minister of finance."

"One of Ah Koy's long-time cronies is Sam Speight, also a commoner politician, who held several posts under Rabuka."

"Sam Speight's son, George, who studied business in a Seventh Day Adventist university in the United States, subsequently moved to Australia, where his career as an entrepreneur included operating an illegal pyramid-selling scheme to fleece small investors."

"In 1997, when George Speight returned to Fiji, he was promptly plugged into Jim Ah Koy's operations and soon appointed by the government to chair both the Fiji Hardwood Corporation and Fiji Pine Limited."

"This made him the most influential person in the timber industry, a position of particular importance as Fiji's huge mahogany plantations, said to be the most valuable in the world, were coming to maturity."

"The government contracted as international accountancy firm to locate a suitable partner to exploit this resource, and, at a February 1999 meeting in Suva with Jim Ah Koy and George Speight, they recommended the British government-owned Commonwealth Development Corporation for the job. This advice was declined."

"It seems that Seight had developed a relationship with Marshall Pettit, a Seattle financier, who had not only made a formal bid, but also, it later emerged, deposited substantial sums into Speight's Brisbane bank account."

"The government chose Pettit's Timber Resource Management bid, which was to be financed by a bond issue on which tidy commissions would be paid."

"One lawyer close to the process observed that with this deal, "George would have been made in the shade" (Sydney Morning Herald, 27 May 2000)."