20 May 2010

Doubts remain over reports into Fiji's NPF deals

3:49 pm on 20 May 2010

A Fiji economist says it is not known whether the results of an investigation into the country's National Provident Fund will be made public.

Forensic accountants from Deloitte's in Australia are due to arrive in the country today to investigate several failed investments by the Fund, which have resulted in a 161 million US dollar write down of its assets.

Professor Wadan Narsey says the FNPF has historically been a cash cow - not just for the interim regime, but for previous governments.

He says any investigation is useful.

"As to whether they can get access to all the information they want, the Fiji National Provident Fund was unable to bring out its annual report for 2007 and 2008 because one of the companies involved in the Natadola deal refused to give all the papers that they had. Now whether that has come through or not is anybody's guess. I mean the other thing is we don't even know whether this report by Deloitte's will ever be made public either."

Professor Wadan Narsey of the University of the South Pacific