9 Oct 2003

Air Pacific sponsors government ministers to attend Rugby World Cup

4:56 pm on 9 October 2003

Fiji's national airline, Air Pacific, has confirmed it is paying for the prime minister, Laisenia Qarase, and a group of cabinet ministers to fly to Australia and watch the national rugby team in their first World Cup match.

Yesterday, Fiji's labour minister, Kenneth Zinck said the cabinet ministers going to Australia were paying their own way.

Mr Zinck said that whilst the prime minister Laisenia Qarase was travelling in an official capacity, the other seven cabinet ministers were financing the trips themselves.

But Air Pacific's Sales and Marketing General Manager, Craig McCarthy says the airline has organised both the tickets to the match and the flights to Brisbane as part of their sponsorship of Team Fiji.

"The first match is of course against France in Brisbane and we had decided that we should take some, I guess, influential people here from Fiji to go and watch that match, so yes there are some tickets that have been raised for government ministers."

Craig McCarthy from Air Pacific.