Former Fijian Broadcasting Corporation chief executive Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum was paid $224,792 in bonuses during his term at FBC which began in 2008, the new board chair has claimed.

He was due for a $30,000 bonus this year.

FBC chair Ajai Bhai Amrit also revealed Sayed-Khaiyum, brother of former attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, received a salary of F$304,453 (NZ$218,000) and was paid a bonus of $25,671 during the covid-19 pandemic.

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Amrit revealed this while speaking to the media.

Amrit said FBC would have incurred a loss of more than $63 million if the company had not received annual grants from government.

He clarified questions regarding the purchase of a vehicle by the sacked CEO.

“The final price of the vehicle was $207,470 and the vehicle is at Customs,” Amrit said.

“The vehicle will be tendered, I haven’t seen it yet.”

He said no staff would lose their jobs and the board was now dealing with the company’s annual reports and continuing investigations into its operations.

Wata Shaw is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum denies chair’s claims
FijiVillage News reports that Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said in a statement today that Amrit’s comments that he was being paid $32,000 a month in salary was “absolutely false”.

Sayed-Khaiyum said that under his most recent 3 year contract, which was approved by the previous board in late December, he was paid “nowhere near” what has been falsely reported.

He said that for all his contracts over the last 15 years of his tenure as CEO, FBC had been strictly sanctioned and approved by several boards with a clearly defined job description.

The former FBC chief executive said the board had always approved his salary, bonus and other entitlements based on performance and job evaluation reports.

He said the board also sanctioned every major development at the FBC over the past 15 years.

Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said Amrit’s allegation that Sayed-Khaiyum had received more than $304,000 in salary during the covid19 pandemic was also incorrect.

He said that during this time the FBC staff went through a 10 percent salary reduction for about half a year in order to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on their revenue, and he took a 12 percent salary reduction on his own volition.

Wata Shaw is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Fijian Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) chief executive officer Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum’s employment status has been terminated, new board chair Ajay Bhal Amrit confirmed today.

Amrit said in a statement that chief financial officer Vimlesh Sagar would act in the position until the board could “confidently appoint” a person with appropriate commercial competency and attributes needed to lead the company.

This decision was made following a board meeting with Amrit, Sayed-Khaiyum, executive directors and senior management team on Friday.

Amrit said Sayed-Khaiyum was earning considerably more than government ministers and even the prime minister. Riyaz is the brother of former FijiFirst attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

He was receiving approximately $32,000 a month and $25,000 in bonus a year, said Amrit.

Amrit said this came as a shock to the new FBC board members and to most of the citizens of Fiji.

FBC grant to be reviewed
He said there were discussions with Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and Minister for Finance Professor Biman Prasad and it was agreed that the government grant to FBC would be reviewed.

“The board will work with staff and management to ensure that FBC is a financially viable and a self-sustaining commercial business, while honouring its PSB [public service broadcasting] responsibilities,” he said.

He added that the public broadcaster FBC was willing to work with other media organisations to ensure that there was positive change to the current media laws as this would allow the newsroom to function in a fresh, balanced and new environment going forward.

FBC board chair Ajay Amrit talks finances.                      Audio: Fiji Times

“Our collective objective and commitment to our staff, shareholders, our valued listeners and viewers remains.”

Wata Shaw is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Freelance columnist and businessman Ajay Bhai Amrit is the new chair of the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) board — and he has taken on the job with a symbolic director’s fee of just $1 a year.

His appointment came after the resignation of all former FBC board members on January 11.

“Our appointments are for three years, and our specific role is to effectively represent and promote the interests of the shareholders,” Amrit said.

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“The shareholders, of course, are the people of Fiji.”

The newly appointed board members are career banker Cecil Browne and lawyers Hemendra Nagin and Mereoni Duaibe. More will be appointed soon.

$11m grant questioned
Amrit said the board wanted to know how the national broadcaster spends the annual $11 million grant that it receives from the government.

He said $11 million was a lot of money and worked out to a spending of almost $1 million a month.

He said the board had asked FBC chief executive officer Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum and the management to provide information that would shed light on the company’s financial situation.

“What it’s being used for, we need to break it down,” Amrit said.

The scrutiny of FBC’s books was aligned to Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s call for an audit and investigation into the operations of the government as well as its statutory bodies.

“The PM has said that there will be audits and investigations into more than one organisation, whether it be statutory or not, within the government’s sphere — so that’s number one,” he said

“Number two is that we welcome an audit to see what the situation is and once that audit is done then we will be in a better position to make decisions going forward.

“We are working through a process and we’re working within the law.”

He said the board wanted to understand FBC’s business model and how public funds allocated were being used.

Meri Radinibaravi is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

Bula readers. As some of you might be aware, I am a member of various media bodies and human rights international bodies such as Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders, who do an excellent job as a watchdog on human rights and also press freedom across the globe.

Every year a Press Freedom Index is compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders which gives a ranking of 180 countries worldwide and assesses them on their press freedom records and the degree of freedom that journalists, media outlets and news organisations have in reporting.

The study is very thorough and comprehensive which gives it international credibility and is also a yardstick for gauging the true measure of freedom the press actually has in each of the nations it assesses.

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Press freedom is defined as the ability of journalists as individuals and collectives to select, produce, and disseminate news in the public interest independent of political, economic, legal, and social interference and in the absence of threats to their physical and mental safety.

I am writing on press freedom to encourage our Fiji government and stakeholders that we need to do better as we have been ranked the worst nation in the Pacific for press freedom, which is really not a title to be proud of.

The evaluation criteria to get to this conclusion is a long and complex one, but to try and break it down briefly, there are the five RSF categories and indicators,

1. Political context – 33 questions and subquestions

They aim to evaluate:

• the degree of support and respect for media autonomy vis-à-vis political pressure from the state or from other political actors;
• the level of acceptance of a variety of journalistic approaches satisfying professional standards, including politically aligned approaches and independent approaches;
• the degree of support for the media in their role of holding politicians and government to account in the public interest.

2. Legal framework – 25 questions and subquestions

They concern the legislative and regulatory environment for journalists, in particular:

• the degree to which journalists and media are free to work without censorship or judicial sanctions, or excessive restrictions on their freedom of expression;
• the ability to access information without discrimination between journalists, and the ability to protect sources;
• the presence or absence of impunity for those responsible for acts of violence against journalists.

3. Economic context – 25 questions and subquestions

They aim to evaluate in particular:

• economic constraints linked to governmental policies (including the difficulty of creating a news media outlet, favouritism in the allocation of state subsidies, and corruption);
• economic constraints linked to non-state actors (advertisers and commercial partners);
• economic constraints linked to media owners seeking to promote or defend their business interests.

4. Sociocultural context – 22 questions and subquestions

They aim to evaluate in particular:

• social constraints resulting from denigration and attacks on the press based on such issues as gender, class, ethnicity and religion;
• cultural constraints, including pressure on journalists to not question certain bastions of power or influence or not cover certain issues because it would run counter to the prevailing culture in the country or territory.

5. Safety – 12 questions and subquestions

The questions concern journalists’ safety. For this purpose, press freedom is defined as the ability to identify, gather and disseminate news and information in accordance with journalistic methods and ethics, without unnecessary risk of:

• bodily harm (including murder, violence, arrest, detention and abduction);
• psychological or emotional distress that could result from intimidation, coercion, harassment, surveillance, doxing (publication of personal information with malicious intent), degrading or hateful speech, smears and other threats targeting journalists or their loved ones;
• professional harm resulting from, for example, the loss of one’s job, the confiscation of professional equipment, or the ransacking of installations. I felt it would be necessary to list how comprehensively thorough the organisation is in collecting information and data to make their assessment of countries and their willingness to let the public’s voice and their opinions be heard through the press without fear of reprisal.

The bad news is Fiji has a ranking of 102nd out of 180 countries in the world and to give you an example of where we are placed, just above us and in better positions are countries such as the Central African Republic, Botswana and Mongolia.

From a Pacific point of view, Papua New Guinea is ranked at 62, Tonga at 49 and Samoa at 45, which makes our ranking a national shame.

We really have some serious work in front of us to make media freedom truly something we can be proud of, because at present we are now the laughingstock of the Pacific.

Finally, we have an obligation as a nation to let our citizens have a voice and that voice is the press and the media.

Unfortunately, judging from the comprehensive and detailed ranking system that all the countries have been scrutinised under, we are falling far short of any kind of true freedom of press and freedom of media and that is the reality on the ground.

It is always a very serious issue indeed when the voices of the citizens cannot be heard and is suppressed through various laws and intimidation.

I believe we are better than this and have an obligation to improve our rankings to at the very least a satisfactory level and not one of a failed state.

What a national shame and what a sad reflection of our society in general. Take care and be safe.

Ajay Bhai Amrit is a founding member of the People’s Alliance party and is also a freelance writer. This article was first published in The Fiji Times and is republished with permission.