ATTORNEY-General and Minister for Finance Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum revealed the Health Ministry would be investigated by the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) for alleged deception.
He made this revelation when announcing that staff members of the Education Ministry, printing companies and certain procurement officers will be investigated for alleged deception and unscrupulous deals in relation to the printing of textbooks causing delay in distribution.
He claims that procurement officers were also involved.
He said the Government would be reviewing the Fiji Procurement Office.
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said they found in the recent past that the two ministries were notorious for this.
“For example recently we discovered that there was a request for waiver for procurement of medicine saying that the medicine was about to expire knowing sometime back that it was going to expire,” he said.
“So why send it to us at the last minute? So obviously this a good ploy as far as they are concerned when you send something at the last minute.
“Then the Ministry of Finance, procurement officers and the minister says well you know we need to get these services out to the members of the public.
“We cannot have people without medicine.
“Obviously we cannot have people without textbooks so let’s grant them a waiver. So this is a bit of a systematic way of defrauding the system.”
Minister for Health Jone Usamate said he would let the A-G carry out his investigation.
“As part of Government, we go ahead with what is moving ahead with other parts of Government that’s it,” he said.
