A FORMER employee of the Public Works Department (PWD) was sentenced to three years in jail by the High Court in Suva yesterday.
Kiniviliame Taviraki was charged by the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) with one count of abuse of office and three counts of causing a loss in 2014.
Mr Taviraki had earlier received a sentence of six years imprisonment in 2017 in another case involving similar corruption-related activities resulting in the defrauding of his former employers.
He was found guilty and convicted accordingly in March this year for his role in causing a loss of $8838.24 while serving as a senior technical officer at PWD.
Judge Justice Riyaz Hamza ordered that the additional sentence be served concurrently with his existing sentence and did not fix a non-parole period.
Justice Hamza said in addition to the serious breach of trust, the repetitive and systematic breaches of procurement procedures established that there was prior planning and a deliberate attempt by the accused to defraud public funds.
He stated that as a senior employee of PWD, the accused owed a duty to his employers to be honest and loyal in the performance of his functions and that his actions breached this trust.
Mr Taviraki will receive his third sentence for similar crimes in September.
