Minister for Sugar, Charan Jeath Singh says his Permanent Secretary, Yogesh Karan had referred Abdul Khan on allegations of financial abuse and mismanagement to the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption back in 2016.
When asked whether he trusted his Permanent Secretary who had said back in 2016 that investigation into the matter had already commenced, Singh said he cannot make a comment on that issue but was told by Karan that he had given the FICAC for investigation.
“I question FICAC and want to know where their investigations are up to now, but for the trust or no trust issue, I cannot answer that. We will have to see, down the road, whether he is performing or not. If he does not perform, that is obviously an issue there, but we will give him a chance,” he said.
Last week, the Minister revealed the exuberant salaries of some former executives of FSC.
Singh said he has instructed the current CEO Bhan Pratap Singh to provide the Ministry of Sugar with the salaries and remunerations paid to the former executives of the Corporation.
“I got it in writing and that’s where we found out that the former CEO Abdul Khan was paid almost $840,000 in allowance and salaries and so was the other CEO Graham Clarke who was paid over $550,000.”
“FSC has been going down, farmers have been struggling on the farm and yet these executives were making money left, right and centre, which is very shocking,” Singh added.
