Fijian Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) board chairman Ajay Bhai Amrit says he has receipts to prove former FBC chief executive officer Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum received an annual package of $387,790 including benefits and entitlements.

He said this worked out to $32,315 a month and that the board had evidence in the form of payslips and Sayed-Khaiyum’s contract.

Sayed-Khaiyum had denied the amount disclosed was what he received in salary.

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In response to media queries about going public with Sayed-Khaiyum’s salary, Amrit said the people owned FBC as the public broadcaster and they had every right to know where and how their money was being spent.

He also said the $93 million that FBC received over the past 14 years would be closely scrutinised to see where the money went — a process which he said could take weeks.

Responding to a question from the media on claims made by Sayed-Khaiyum that the government left FBC “short changed”, Amrit said the corporation could not continue without government funding.

Government funding was about $11.2 million a year — almost $1 million per month.

Amrit said since the ex chief executive had taken the reins at FBC, it had received about $93 million in public service broadcasting funds, but it would not be known for some time whether the funds were used for public service broadcasting or for other things.

“It takes quite a long time to work out where that money is going, how it came in, what it was used for, and 100 percent we need to work on this but it will take weeks,” he said.

“It’s not a simple situation where I can sit down and say hold on, this money went yeah there, everywhere.

“It was used for various means so we’ve got to find out.”

Amrit said some of FBC best customers were government departments.

Ian Chute is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

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.

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.

One of Fiji’s leading media analysts says wholesale changes to the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation’s board were inevitable, given the change of government in the country, reports ABC Pacific Beat.

The board’s previous members and chairman resigned last week as Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s government continues to clear the decks in the public service.

The government has begun an investigation into excessive spending patterns in the Department of Information, involving US-based PR company Qorvis, along with local communications company VATIS and FBC itself.

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After the termination of Qorvis Communications and Vatis, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has indicated that attention has now shifted to the state-run Fiji Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) and Fiji Sun newspaper.

He revealed this while addressing the nation on Friday afternoon.

“We made it clear in our manifestos that implementation of certain promises would be dependent on the true state of Fiji’s economy,” Rabuka said.

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“We will be conducting mandatory audits and associated checks and balances. Until these are completed, we will be curtailing what we consider to be wasteful spending in areas that are not a priority.

“We’ve started an investigation into what appears to be excessive spending in the Department of Information, through payments to the [US-based] public affairs company Qorvis, the local communications company Vatis, the Fijian Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) and the Fiji Sun newspaper.

“In fact, there are many looming issues to address.”

He said that in the past 14 days they had made progress with ministers establishing themselves in their respective ministries.

Questions sent to FBC chief executive officer, Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, and Fiji Sun acting chief executive officer Rosi Doviverata remained unanswered when this edition of the Fiji Times went to press.

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