March 2, 2008
By Michael Field
Mahendra Chaudhry's single biggest problem is not his tax but the fact that he cannot be trusted.
He says, with the force of the Fiji Military behind him, that he is honest. But, in a rather more fundamental way, he has demonstrated he is ambitious, venal and untrustworthy.
On the basis of the evidence leaked so far, its far from clear that his tax position is corrupt, as defined in purely narrow legal and taxation terms. But that does not make him an innocent.
In the 1999 elections and after the 2000 coup, Chaudhry said he was a democrat who believed in the democratic process. In 2006 he raced to join Voreqe Bainimarama's military coup. It is that single act, alone, that ended any question about Chaudhry's honesty.
He is not.
Quite intelligent people rather quickly figured he was corrupt back in late 2000. After he was freed from the clinches of George Speight's gang he left Fiji, going first to Australia and New Zealand where, uneasily, he was received as something of a hero of the labour movement.
By the end of the year it was clear that both then Australian and New Zealand Foreign Ministers Phil Goff and Alexander Downer had ditched him. They would not say it publicly, but the quiet nod was given that no government was going to make a stand for Chaudhry. Influential doors closed on him.
As with so much to do with Chaudhry the unease had to do with money.
In the seven years since fragments of information, whipped up into a classic Fiji curry, have repeatedly pointed to the way Chaudhry raised money, in India, for the democratic cause. What happened to the money became a standard question.
The man himself, who had the answers, refused to say and like his new master, was less than transparent and actually threatening.
Chaudhry is a political bully who destroys more people than he claims to save. He is in an even more powerful position now because his Patron can send the soldiers around to persuade any questioner to shut up ... or, as in the case of Russell Hunter, leave the country with his toothbrush.
Ex Fiji journalist and now British law student Victor Lal has been blessed with access to a number of documents which, while far from definitive, point to Chaudhry's corruption. Many of the claims appear on his own website and have for a while in Hunter's Fiji Sun.
Little of it is new; much of it has floated around for several years and even emerged now and again in Fiji media before. Fiji Inland Revenue and Customs Authority (FIRCA) and the political system though have been stymied by Chaudhry's sheer nastiness and unwillingness to cooperate.
The material Lal has published, from tax files Chaudhry himself filed, implicates the Indian Government in Chaudhry's operation. He claims the Indian Consul General in Sydney was a conduit.
Chaudhry's own accountant in 2004 notified FIRCA that he had received A$514,148.50 from the Consul and deposited in a Commonwealth Bank call account. An Indian wrote to Chaudhy confirming the money had gone through the Consul. Bank statements should Chaudhry collecting just over A$1.5 million. The politicians letter said the money had been collected to pay for Chaudhry to move to Australia. As it was for personal use, FIRCA ordered Chaudhry to pay tax on it as well as to pay tax on the years 2001, 2002 and 2003 when he failed to file tax returns. The bill was F$120,000.
Victor Lal's files show a long sequence of letters, claims and counter-claims.
At one level it is just the correspondence of one sharp dealing businessman trying to limit his tax exposure and using all kind of devices to delay payment. But of course Chaudhry is no ordinary businessman; he is a politician, a self-proclaimed defender of the working classes. It was happening too while Chaudhry was in the political wilderness; his savior Bainimarama had still not arrived. The impact of it all now is that Bainimarama and Chaudhry are saying that while corruption is bad and has to be halted, the rules do not apply to them.
FIRCA were finding it difficult to get through the complications of Chaudhry's tax files but were well underway when Bainimarama launched his anti-corruption coup. That coup saved Chaudhry's neck. He was able to end the tax investigation and assume the mantle of finance minister ... protected by the military guns. Chaudhry's tax difficulties ended with the coup; so do the awkward questions of the then independent Fiji Police into possible murder charges against Bainimarama. Its why they two are locked in a death dive now.
Chaudhry also protects himself by throwing around libel writs against local newspapers. He claims he is innocent but the files so far show that while his tax affairs are a mess, it hardly seems credible that he should be in the Finance Minister in a military dictatorship dedicated to "cleaning up".
And one of the oddest twists in the story is the emergence of ailing businessman Jim Ah Koy who purchased a colonial knighthood in PNG and is now Fiji's Ambassador to China. A self confessed friend of George Speight and a key player in Sitiveni Rabuka's coup, Ah Koy now says Fiji's economy is in a mess and its all Chaudhry's fault.
Ah Koy says he wants to be finance minister instead.
Little wonder, perhaps, that so many people in Fiji now feel they live in a nightmare from where there is no escape. If Ah Koy is the next saviour, god help Fiji.
Press statements:
Media Freedom is secure- PM Bainimarama. February 28, 2008
Bainimarama press conference. February 24, 2008
Copyright: Michael Field
