New appointments: daddy's little girl and dodgy highflyers

SAI'S COMMENTS:

• As 2011 begins, the illegal regime's approach to national affairs remain the same as evidenced by the story in this piece.
  
  
• Nepotism and the rewarding of regime supporters and fellow travellers remain a hallmark of the way the regime recruits people. Let alone the lack of transparency over the appointment process as it railroads its preferred candidates to posts in government. 
  
  
• The appointment of the Dictator's daughter is a case in point. Be good to learn of her credentials and capabilities, other than being the daughter of Fiji's illegal PM and Dictator.
  
  
• As Fiji welcomes reluctantly another year under a military dictatorship, one thing is certain - Fiji and its people are destined for another rough year under an illegal regime.
  
  
• The only hope for salvation is for a TUNIISIA for Fiji - where a dictator gets kicked out by the people fed up with the NEPOTISM and dictatorial rule of a Despot. 
  
  
• For Fiji's sake I pray it happens much much sooner than later.

posted on coup four point five - WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2011

More behind the scene movements today the people of Fiji are unlikely to be told about officially.

Top of the list is news the daughter of the self-appointed leader, Voreqe Bainimarama, Litiana, has been made CEO of the Fiji Sports Council.

Litiana was deported from New Zealand following the 2006 coup because of her connections (she was apparently given the flick by her then husband for the same reason) and used to work for Transtel, the Telecom Fiji subsidiary. 

More openly, the illegal attorney-General and Minister for Public Enterprises, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, has named two new appointments to the board of directors for Airports Fiji Limited (AFL).

They are Adrian Sofield, the chair of the Fiji Islands Trade and Investment Bureau (FTIB) and Faiz Khan, a lawyer. Sofield (pictured) has been appointed chair of AFL and Khan director and both have been signed up for three years. 

But not stated by the Khaiyum presser today is Sofield's earlier business activities. In the nineties, he is reported to have admitted to bribing the Mayor of Suva to speed up consent for the approval of a condominium site he was in charge of at Queen Elizabeth Drive.

Sofield was struck of by the Fiji Institute of Architects and the site today belongs to the Chinese Embassy.

Worth noting, also, is the pending departure of the publisher of the Fiji Times, Dallas Swinstead, after just five months. He was brought in by owner Mac Patel to help the paper 'cross over' after the forced News Ltd sale. 

Owner and publisher have both frothed about the Australian's contribution in re-inforcing the Fiji Times as the country's "most important paper" but many would agree that's an exxageration.

Less enthusiastic to discuss his future is Brigadier Colonel Mohammed Aziz, who is now rumoured to be of all boards and languishing at home after losing favour with fellow conspirators.