ALTHOUGH the Fiji Pine Trust owned only 0.02 per cent of shares in Fiji Pine Ltd, it received 50 per cent of dividends and voting rights to decide on board members
As major shareholders in Fiji Pine Ltd, Government owned 99.98 per cent of its shares and received the remaining 50 per cent dividend.
Minister for Forests Osea Naiqamu said although Government was a major shareholder, its only role was to facilitate the trust’s voting rights.
He explained that the division of dividends and shares was adopted after Government invested $100 million into Fiji Pine Ltd.
“Fiji Pine Ltd is structured in such a way to encourage community participation, especially the people who leased their land to Fiji Pine Ltd,” he said. “In 1976 there was an emerging market through the Japanese Government for pine chips and hence government embarked on land acquisition.”
Mr Naqamu said after a sector review of the then Fiji Industry in 1989, Government tried to find how best the ownership could be transferred to the landowners as per the commission act focusing on how best it would create a viable pine industry.
“This led to the abolishment of the Fiji Pine Commission Act, which birthed the three entities, Fiji Pine Ltd to be run under the Company Act of 1983, Fiji Pine Trust to take the interest and share of the landowners as an equity participation in the company and the Forestry Industry Assistance Scheme,” he said.
“When the company was corporatised from 1972 to 1990, Government had invested $100 million into developing the pine industry in Fiji.
“After the elections in 1987 major pine farms underwent major fires and a series of cyclone while the company loss where $39 million was written off in debts.”
Mr Naiqamu said the remaining $61m was Government’s and converted into shares to Fiji Pine Ltd.
