Taxpayers forked out $111,046 for Fiji Sugar Corporation board chair Nitya Reddy’s five overseas travels over a one-year period.
A 12-page response from Sugar Minister Charan Jeath Singh to a written question from last month’s Parliament sitting said he had personally approved the New Zealand-based chair’s trips as they were “necessary”.
He said it would be petty for anyone to judge Mr Reddy’s competence and contributions on the basis of his travels.
Responding this week to written questions posed in Parliament by Opposition MP Alvick Maharaj, Mr Singh said it was important to understand that the travels were necessitated by the seriously collapsing state of FSC.
“The chairman and his board members, who are amongst the lowest paid in the country, have been handed a completely run-down infrastructure of ageing mill machinery, plant, buildings, and transport network; almost 90 per cent of them are more than 100 years old,” he said.
“All these years of sustained neglect, lack of proper oversight, incompetence, corruption and wastages have now brought it down to its knees, gravely threatening its viability. We must not forget that one single STM project alone cost the industry nearly $800million in losses.
“Let me also put on record that the chairman has been handed a poisoned chalice in having to secure a turnaround with a debt of nearly $400million.
“In the current chairman, I have a person whose knowledge and skills are unmatched, and it will be petty for anyone to judge his competence and contributions on the basis of his travels.”
Mr Reddy travelled to London and Toulouse for the ISO Conference, China to visit a new sugar mill factory, Brazil on a trip with Mr Singh and other industry representatives, and Townsville, Australia, with the Sugar Minister, permanent secretary and FSC chief executive officer, and again to London for the ISO Conference.
Mr Singh said the ministry and other stakeholders were committed to ensuring Fiji remained a competitive player in the global sugar market.
“The overseas travels have been an eye opener for us. I make it clear and confidently say that our sugar industry is at least 50 years behind all our contemporary sugarcane producers, millers and manufacturers in terms of technology, efficiency, diversification and sustainability.”
