FNPF Transition Decree – last nail in FNPF coffin for pensioners

The illegal President has signed the unlawful “Fiji National Provident Fund Transition Decree” which trashes lawful contracts between FNPF and pensioners, takes away their basic human rights to personal property, and removes their basic human right to take their just FNPF grievances to court (while it shamelessly claims that no one’s human rights are adversely affected by this Decree).

The FNPF Transition Decree claims in Part 2, that:
“the principal object of this Part is to ensure that the arrangements for the provision of annuities by the Board are sustainable, non-discriminatory, and do not involve cross subsidy of one group (pensioners and annuitants) by another (FNPF members).”

Such phrases are also in the draft FNPF Act, and the drafters have no idea (or they don’t care) how internally inconsistent all these phrases are even within their Decrees (elaborated below).

The Decree makes a pathetic attempt to justify itself by referring to IMF, World Bank, ILO and “actuarial experts” who we know all recommended reductions of future annuities, but none recommended the breaking of lawful contracts and basic human rights to property nor of denying recourse to justice for existing pensioners.  

These agencies need to be publicly challenged as to whether they lend their support to this unlawful Decree which undermines laws of contracts and fundamental human rights of pensioners in Fiji.

The Decree has five Parts:

Part 2:  Terminates the current pensioners’ claims
Part 3:  Share investment scheme (not commented on here)
Part 4:  Protections  (what a farce).
Part 5:  Regulations (not commented here)

Part 2:  Trashing lawful contracts

Despite the FNPF CEO’s strange claim that pensioners do not have a “contract” but an “agreement”, the facts all suggest that pensioners do have lawful contracts approved by the elected Fiji Parliament:

I remind again, Article 4 of the FNPF Act states that the FNPF Board shall be a body corporate and shall, by the name of “The Fiji National Provident Fund Board”, have perpetual succession and a common seal …. The Board may sue and be sued in its corporate name and may enter into contracts.
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On 5 January 2012 Reserve Bank of Fiji confirmed the implementation of the Credit Card Levy (CCL) as announced in the 2012 Budget. The Credit Card Levy will be implemented with effect from 1 January 2012 by all commercial banks issuing credit cards.

Key features of the Credit Card Levy
• A charge to customers at the rate of 2 percent on the outstanding balance at the end of each month (commencing January 2012).
• The imposition of the CCL is based on the month end balance (i.e. debt), irrespective of the statement date or due date for payment of the balance. Hence you have to pay an extra 2% on all your purchases.
• The month end balance is inclusive of any interest and other bank charges. So you pay an additional 2% on all bank charges.

NOTE: This only applies to credit cards issued by Fiji Banks so the Government is deliberately penalising Fiji Citizens.

Save this expense by giving up your Credit Cards and take out a Debit Card, or pay cash.

The Muppets who dreamed up this levy clearly do not appreciate it will increase the use of cash, which will increase the sale of Brown Paper Bags, which in turn will result in Black Money Cash on which taxes will be avoided, end result… We all lose… Corruption is not Dead…….. Neither is Bureaucratic Stupidity and Greed 

“Air Pacific will increase its flights to Sydney by flying 13 times everyday in a week except on Monday.”                          

Managing Director and CEO, Dave Pflieger said that the increase in flights will come into effect on January 15th. ( As published by Fiji Village )

Thirteen times everyday Dave, what have you been smoking in the USA?, almost every flight during the holiday period has suffered extensive delays and that is on one flight a day.

We think you should give the Fiji Pensioners back their $200,000,000.

It is worth noting a number of passengers were delayed for FIVE DAYS, and that Fast Talking High Flying Dave did not sign the circular because he was busy resting in the USA for his Christmas Holiday;

26^th December 2011-12-29

Honoured Guest

On behalf of Air Pacific, I would like to sincerely apologise for the fact that your Christmas or vacation plans were seriously disrupted this past weekend, and I would like to offer you the following gifts to try to make up for the trouble that we may have caused you or your family. 

A F$400 voucher (attached) which is good for travel on Air Pacific by 22 December 2012, as well as a small holiday gift ( a small bottle of body lotion) for you or a loved one will be handed to you. 

In addition, while it may provide little comfort at this point, I would like to explain the lengths that our team went to in an attempt to get you to Nadi as you had originally planned.
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PERMIT me to begin this letter with a brief description of my knowledge of, and affection for, your country. 

I first came to Germany as a boy student aged 13 in 1952, two years before you were born. After three extended vacations with German families who spoke no English I found at the age of 16 and to my pleasure that I could pass for German among Germans.

In my 20s I was posted as a foreign correspondent to East Germany in 1963, when you would have been a schoolgirl just north of East Berlin where I lived.

I know Germany, Frau Merkel, from the alleys of Hamburg to the spires of Dresden, from the Rhine to the Oder, from the bleak Baltic coast to the snows of the Bavarian Alps. I say this only to show you that I am neither ignoramus nor enemy.

I also had occasion in those years to visit the many thousands of my countrymen who held the line of the Elbe against 50,000 Soviet main battle tanks and thus kept Germany free to recover, modernise and prosper at no defence cost to herself.

And from inside the Cold War I saw our decades of effort to defeat the Soviet empire and set your East Germany free.

I was therefore disappointed last Friday to see you take the part of a small and vindictive Frenchman in what can only be seen as a targeted attack on the land of my fathers.

We both know that every country has at least one aspect of its society or economy that is so crucial, so vital that it simply cannot be conceded. 
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Members of the public at the FNPF public consultation at Rishikul Secondary School. Picture: ATU RASEA (The expressions of hopelessness and distrust on their faces says it all)

* Disclaimer: The following opinions expressed are those of the authors’ Shauna Tomkins and Geoff Rashbrooke  and are not intended as legal or financial advice.

Statements continue to be made about the FNPF reforms that are simply not true.

Predictably, the termination of the pension scheme has been met with anger and cynicism by those affected who even question the need for reforms in the first place. Many pensioners understand that the new life annuity arrangements are offered at a much lower conversion rate and alternative investments will not generate the returns enjoyed under the old life annuities arrangements. The reason is obvious ù there are no investments available to support pensions at a rate of 25 per cent or even 15 per cent that are of an acceptable risk for individuals or FNPF for that matter. There never were.

Prior FNPF boards, management and successive governments ù elected and otherwise ù failed to implement a proper fix to the problem. This is despite 20 years of warnings by the International Labor Organisation, World Bank, IMF, actuaries and special advisors. The 1999 changes did little to solve the problem. Ironically, subsequent drives to encourage taking the life pension at entitlement only made the problem worse.

Unfortunately, those pensioners most affected by the termination/refund plan will not be satisfied with anything other than the status quo ù no change. While an easy solution may have been to change only conversion rates on future pensions and leave the past pensions alone, to do so continues to discriminate against working members in favour of pensioners and compounds past mistakes. Status quo would mean that members continue to pay for the next 30 years. It means a 25yo in the work force today retires with potentially 30 per cent less because earnings must be redirected to pay these pensions.

The self-interest is understandable and so it is no surprise that mis-statements continue to be made by those who believe that they have the most to lose. The silent majority who will benefit from the changes remains just that ù silent.

Here are the 10 biggest myths about the FNPF reforms.
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AUSTRALIA’S pursuit of Julian Moti, QC, has come to a shabby end in the High Court after eight bizarre years. The Fiji-born Australian lawyer has now averted trial on child sex charges because, said the court, his deportation from the Solomon Islands in 2007 was so bungled by Canberra that any trial would be an abuse of process.

A new government in Honiara anxious to rid itself of a man just sacked as attorney-general, declared Mr Moti “an undesirable person who has conducted himself in a manner prejudicial to the peace, public order, public morality, security and good government of Solomon Islands” and bundled him onto a plane for Brisbane.

They jumped the gun. Local law gave Mr Moti seven days to consider an appeal. The mistake was Honiara’s but Canberra connived in it by providing the necessary paperwork for Mr Moti and his guards to land in Brisbane. So a chase that cost a fortune, soured this country’s relations with both PNG and the Solomons and then tied up Australian courts for years has come to nothing.
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Posted at 03:54 on 07 December, 2011 UTC

The New Zealand Law Society says the Fiji interim regime’s latest decree goes against basic principles of the rule of law.

The Fiji National Provident Fund decree regulates changes to the country’s main pension scheme, and does not allow anyone to challenge its provisions in court.

It also gives the Attorney-General the power to stop any challenge already underway.

The chairman of the society’s Rule of Law Committee Austin Forbes QC says there are isolated and sometimes justifiable no-challenge provisions in other countries including New Zealand.

He says the catch-all nature of the Fiji decree is indefensible.

“That’s a breach of the accepted principles of the rule of law that legislation does not take away existing rights which are in the form of a current court proceeding that’s already been initiated. Secondly on a broader level I’m afraid it only demonstrates the continuing erosion of the rule of law and indeed democratic values in Fiji.”

Mr Forbes says the decree further threatens the independence of judges in Fiji.

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