Former Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry says top executives of the Fiji National Provident Fund are paid an average annual salary equivalent to that of the Prime Minister.
Chaudhry in a statement said the Fund’s 2023 annual report shows that $2.9m was paid to nine executives.
“This comes to an average of $327,000 per individual. The report does not disclose the
actual salaries paid to each of them.”
He said in the four years from 2019-2023, average executive salaries went up by $148,000 or $37,000 annually, rising from an average $179,000 in 2019 to $327,000 in 2023.
“Astonishingly, they received fairly substantial increases even at the height of the
Covid crisis of 2020/21 when the Fund was struggling through the huge loss in
contribution income.”
“FNPF is a workers’ fund. The massive increments awarded to top Fund executives
has to be weighed against the fact that workers’ themselves are paid a pittance of 8%
in annuity rate, slashed unilaterally from 15% in 2012 by the Bainimarama
administration.”
The Fiji Labour Party Leader claims the management continues to totally ignore urgent pleas from pensioners for a review of the 2012 restructure of the Fund, in fairness to senior citizens who were unlawfully stripped of their pensions by a massive 50 per cent.
“Faced with huge increases in the cost of living, most of these seniors are living a
hand to mouth existence.”
“It should be noted that pensions are not pegged to increases in cost of living.”
“We now have a situation where many future pensioners will suffer a similar fate. A
significant number of them are those forced to withdraw from their savings to survive
the Covid crisis.”
“A total of $180m was withdrawn and is not being reimbursed to their accounts despite
election promises by those in the Coalition Government,” he concluded.
The FNPF management has been approached for a response.
