PRIME Minister Sitiveni Rabuka says the reassignment of the Policing and Immigration ministerial portfolios are unrelated to the unauthorised passport issuance investigation report.
Prior to Friday’s announcement, the two portfolios were handled by the Defense and Veteran Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua before he voluntarily stepped aside in November 2024 to allow for an impartial investigation “without any perception of undue influence from my office” to the matter.
An investigation was launched to determine whether a child of a Grace Road Church member was entitled to a Fijian passport and how the passport was released on the eve of a planned flight out of the country.
The child’s mother had escaped from Grace Road’s TrueMart in Navua where she claimed she had been subjected to “slavery” and multiple rights violation by the Grace Road organisation for eight years.
These claims were refuted by Grace Road.
“The result of the investigations has gone to the ODPP to decide,” Mr Rabuka said in a media conference on Friday.
When asked whether the result of the investigation had influenced his decision to reassign the two portfolios from Mr Tikoduadua, he said, “I have not even seen the result”.
Group of Nine (G9) Opposition Members of Parliament Ioane Naivalurua and Viliame Naupoto have been assigned the Policing and Immigration portfolios.
