18 Jul 2008

Fiji's election supervisor in breach of employment contract, says Radio Fiji

1:13 pm on 18 July 2008

Fiji's recently-appointed Supervisor of Elections Felicity Heffernan may be investigated for failing to take up office as stipulated in her contract.

Ms Heffernan, who was expected to arive in Fiji two weeks ago, was to have started work last Monday.

The Constitutional Offices Commission Chairman, Rishi Ram, has told Radio Fiji she is being given until next week to take up office.

Mr Ram says they are concerned that they have not been able to contact her.

She was nominated in May after another New Zealand candidate, Maurice Coughlan, withdrew once it became known that he had been disbarred in New Zealand in the early 1990s.

Elections have been expected by March but the interim prime minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, has signalled that conditions are not right for Fiji to go to the polls next year.