National Federation Party leader Professor Biman Prasad quizzed Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum about the availability of Fiji Airways’ financials at the companies office after a staff member only managed to obtain three copies in four hours.
“Last week, I sent one of my staff members to the companies office and the staff spent four hours and found only three copies of annual financial statements,” Prof Prasad said.
“And that too at a cost of about $10 for the first 10 pages and 50 cents per page thereafter.
“So I want to know from the honourable Attorney-General, if all copies of financial statements are available in the companies office, why were we able to only access three copies?
“We were told that the others are not there. “The question is where are the other financial statements?
“Is there a Fiji Airways Group file in the office, if yes, why are only three years of financial statements in Air Pacific file — things don’t just add up.”
The NFP leader also said comments made by Fiji Airways CEO Andre Viljoen contradicted what the A-G had said in Parliament.
“Last month, when speaking at the Nadi Chamber of Commerce meeting, the CEO of Fiji Airways, who is also now incidentally the chair of the Fiji Development Bank, said that the lease and loan agreements that bound Fiji Airways were a noose around the airline’s neck, he said that.
“He also said that deferment of lease repayments were not an option for the airline as defaulting one lease arrangement payment would mean losing all — in other words, every other asset.
“This is what he said at that meeting. This was in total contradiction to what the minister said on the 25th of May in Parliament.
“So naturally there would be serious questions about what has happened. “If that was what the CEO was saying then technically it meant that Fiji Airways was insolvent.
“Instead of coming here and blaming every Tom, Dick and Harry, as he calls it, that we are trying to derail the airline, what he should do is to present to Parliament all the financial statements, a detailed plan of how Fiji Airways is going to ride this through.
“We need to discuss that, the Economic Affairs Committee needs to look at all those annual reports.
“That’s when we will have clarity, that’s when the facts will be clear, that’s when we can move ahead.”
