Hari Punja gives Budget Thumbs Up

The Budget was delivered last week.

After all the speculation andrumours, the Interim Minister for Finance delivered the budget at a glitzy event .

Among the notable attendees were former interim Minister for Finance M.P. Chaudhry.

LF sources indicate that M.P Chaudhry and Commodore Bainimarama were in high spirits and exchanged jokes. In keeping with the recent times, Mr John Samy featured prominently.

The Budget has received the Thumbs Up from Fijis version of Donald Trump, Hari Punja. Mr Punja called the budget "business friendly"

Maybe because the company tax rate went down in the 2009 budget.

Why wouldnt he be happy?

More saqamoli for him and the family. Its not called Punja and Sons for nothing.

The personal tax rate remained unchanged.

So, its no wonder that Mr Punja was singing the praise for the budget.

The logic behind the cut is to encourage business investment. In other words, businessmen like Hari Punja will build new factories and hire more workers.

There is one big catch in this .

The profits go overseas to Mr Punjas family members, none of whom live permanently in Fiji.

Nope.

Be it Tappoos, Punjas, Motibhai...they all spend majority of their time in Australia and NZ. In Fiji, all their business is debt financed. Its not their money they are investing.

Its all on credit people and successive governments have given them "tax incentives" like you wouldnt believe.

Imagine if you had a 15 year tax holiday....wouldn't you be laughing all the way to the bank.

INDEPENDENT,BALANCED,IMPARTIAL.

The Paedophiles Come Calling

At what point do you as a nation know that things have gone terribly wrong?

Uemployment? Yes, but we are not alone with joblessness.

Poverty? Absolutely, by some estimates as many as 40% of our population live below the poverty line. Bear in mind that Governments use very "convenient" measures in measuring poverty. Able to afford a loaf of bread and a cup of tea in a day and you are not living in poverty.

Crime? We are in dire straits, but we always point to PNG, who seem to be worse

The Paedophiles Come Calling.

Thats when.

Fiji has seen as alarming increase in the number of young lives spent crawling the pavements of our big cities and towns.

Take a walk through Suva and you will see these "street kids" begging trying to survive. We walk past then everyday without batting an eyelid. The woman with her 3 kids, the youngest no older than a few months old who has to spend entire days sitting outside the offices.

Painful to see, isnt it?

But it gets worse.

News that a 11 yr old Fijian girl was taken to Thailand, and was found wandering the streets after years of abuse is shocking.

Evidence that Fiji is now high on the paedophile radar. The paedophiles are very well organised and run networks where they exchange information on easy targets.

Fiji is emerging as an easy target.

The Irish national who was arrested and found with pornographic material is another indication of the influx of paedophiles into our country. He didnt just arrive here on a random holiday with camcorders, DVD burners and media editing software.

No, he knew exactly what he wanted and where he would get it. In Fiji.

And dont be mistaken. These guys are university lecturers or work as consultants in FIRCA, as previous experience has shown.

What is the Fiji Govt doing about the young girl found in Thailand? No a peep from the authorities.

How did she get there? Who applied for her passport?


An eleven yr old girl cant go alone. Its a very well organised network feeding on our most vulnerable.

The situation in Suva is shocking beyond words.


INDEPENDENT,BALANCED,IMPARTIAL.

Operation Flashpoint - Blackhawk Down, Blackhawk Down - Part 7

In late 2006, a foreign power set in motion a chain of events that would have culminated in the invasion of Fiji.

Codenamed Operation Flashpoint, the ADF deployed its sea-borne and air assets to positions inside Fiji waters within striking distance of the capital Suva.

Additionally, elite Special Forces infiltrated the country with communications equipment and weapons.

How close did we come to being invaded? Who among us who encouraged this act of aggression against their own country?

This is a fictional account of what may have happened in the days leading up to one of the most dramatic chapters in our history
.

Two days after our arrival we were summoned back from a training run where we were testing our SOFLAM's outside Suva Harbour not far from a massive rubbish dump. I couldn't think of a worse place to situate a rubbish dump, right next to the sea and the route most people travel into and out of Suva.

We were met by an agitated military liaison officer who told us that the Australian High Commissioner had received a political directive that we were to based at the High Commission in Reservoir Road and that it was likely that we were being watched.

The FMF had gotten wind of our arrival and they were not happy. I can respect that. I mean if I was told that Indonesian Kopassus were running around Sydney or Perth preparing for a possible sea and air borne incursion, would I be happy? Of course not. Soldiers think alike and I knew exactly where they coming from.

So we went off to hurriedly organised accommodation at the High Commission. We learnt that Chief of the Australian Defence Force Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston had called the FMF to "claim our existence".

We had to remain within the compound as the FMF had assumed an aggressive posture and was threatening to confront us. The Naval deployment proceeded as planned and we maintained contact throughout.

Some time later our operation was called off.

We split into 2 groups. We bought some souvenirs from one of the many Indian shops in town and pretending to be rugby league players returning home after an end of season holiday, flew back to Sydney through Auckland.

It was here that we received the tragic news on the night of November 29 that our brothers training on board the Kanimbla had been killed when the Black Hawk they had been in tipped over into the Sea.

Private Corporal Joshua Porter had died.

We held a moment of silence in his honour.

The invasion of Fiji had been put off.

Operation Flashpoint - Andrew Hughes Boys - Part 6

In late 2006, a foreign power set in motion a chain of events that would have culminated in the invasion of Fiji. Codenamed Operation Flashpoint, the ADF deployed its sea-borne and air assets to positions inside Fiji waters within striking distance of the capital Suva. Additionally, elite Special Forces infiltrated the country with communications equipment and weapons.

 

How close did we come to being invaded? Who among us who encouraged this act of aggression against their own country?

 

This is a fictional account of what may have happened in the days leading up to one of the most dramatic chapters in our history.

 

 

Andrew Hughes had established the TRT as counter balance to the FMF's firepower. The word was that he was working closely with elements in the Fijian Govt to obtain military assistance to keep the army inside its barracks.

 

We arrived in Suva that same night. It normally takes 4 hours to travel from Nadi to Suva (speed limits are not strictly enforced in Fiji) but it took us a fair bit longer.

 

Queens Highway snakes along the western coast of the main island and it was a great opportunity for us to collect data on possible LZ's and transport network choke points.

 

We 'rested" at the unprotected Korolevu airport and the runway at Deuba. Just a bunch of Aussie blokes having a smoke.

 

Both these points are almost directly North from Kadavu where we knew the HMAS Newcastle and Kanimbla would maintain a holding position before the Go was given.

 

We used our comm. equipment to send short messages to test the equipment and log the two LZ's.

 

The next day we acquainted ourselves with the TRT and took a drive around Suva.

 

Strategic points that would have to be secured when the Go-Ahead was given had to be surveilled. The TRT boys drove us around in their twin cabin Toyota Hilux pick-ups.

 

I don't know if its all the rain or what it is , but the road never seem to get any better. The road to Nausori Airport was harrowing as the vehicle weaved in and out of traffic and narrowly avoided missing both pedestrians and other vehicles. The boys told me that it was one of the best rides they ever had.

 

The driver had consumed several buckets of Fijis traditional drink, kava the night before and was just a tad too much in the happy zone for my liking.

 

In Australia, anyone under the influence of such sedatives would be deemed unable to drive, but in Fiji it is normal to consume copious amounts of Kava and drive. No wonder the death toll on Fijis roads runs into the hundreds every year….to be cont.