06 Friday Jul 2012
Posted in Articles & Reports, Grey Power Editor
Congratulations to Air Pacific and HFFT Dave for the apparent improvement in profitability. Perhaps both FTHF Dave and Taito could answer a very simple question.
Has Air Pacific been paying FNPF interest on the F$400,000,000 (Four hundred MILLION dollars) loan they took from the Fiji Pensioners Funds, which at a very low 5% interest equates to $1,666,667.00 per month, or TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS per annum.
Greybeard
04 Monday Jun 2012
What is it about climate change that has people at each others’ throats as soon as the subject crops up? It’s up there with religion and politics as a conversation no-no – a ‘don’t go there’ topic. And what gets my goat is the fact, and it is a fact, that the doom-sayers are winning the argument – to the detriment of children everywhere.
On the one hand we have the ‘there is no such thing as climate change’ fundamentalists: and on the other we have the ‘human beings are causing climate change’ fundamentalists; with neither camp prepared to grant that there has always been climate change, and there always will be climate change, and the truly big unanswered question is ‘just how much are human beings exacerbating climate change’ for the worse. We don’t know. We are simply being told by vested interests that it is all our fault.
I watched a BBC interviewer ask children in a New York school about climate change, and my heart went out to those kids, aged around 5 or 6. They actually believed that the world was about to end – that we would all die for lack of food – that there would soon be no animals left on the planet. They all agreed that they were scared of climate change. One little girl said her mother was ‘very scared’; indeed several mentioned their parents’ fear. Then there was the TV report about a little girl who dashed home from school, burst into her apartment and ran madly from room to room closing every window, yelling to her mother that ‘the air is going to poison us.
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31 Thursday May 2012
Posted in Daily Humour, Letters
Fast talking, High Flying getting Fat Dave is now becoming Desperate Dave, with an offer to all Air Pacific/Fiji Airways staff and their Buddies, for 50% discount travel between Fiji and Auckland return, also vise versa.
Those cardboard carton meals are definitely doing nothing for business.
Not yet desperate enough to offer the Fiji Pensioners and FNPF members (who really own the biggest chunk of the tattered airline by virtue of the F$400,000,000 cash injection, that will never be repaid ) year round fare reductions.
The question really is “ How long can FTHF getting Fat Dave keep grabbing at straws before our government realises that they got a Boy to do a Mans job” ?
Check out the offer>: Buddy Deal 50% Off for Friends Families
16 Wednesday May 2012
Fast Talking High Flying Getting Fat Dave
That Air Pacific is to become Fiji Airways begs one heck of a lot of questions, because a company name change, expensive though it is, sends smoke signals for sure. If we follow that smoke to the offices of HFFT Dave and his minister buddy we shall find the fire.
What fuelled it? Well, fuel costs for one. An aging fleet, for sure. The decision to dump Boeing and jump into bed with Airbus. So let’s speculate…might not these (and more) have initiated a very clever and nasty plan at the highest levels of the aviation industry and the Fiji National Provident Fund – a plan that would begin with the decision to disenfranchise the FNPFs older pensioners – disguised as FNPF ‘reform’. Certainly a reform that was necessary but which perhaps had nothing to do with maintaining FNPF solvency in the long run and everything to do with raising money which the govt does not have?
Was this, at the highest levels, agreed that the FNPF would fund the new Airbuses? And to do that would the fund cheat its members and cut older pensions, whilst cleverly arranging a ‘top-up’ for the grass-roots pensioners to get them on side?
Was it a deliberate decision to quietly, without going public, declare Air Pacific bankrupt, write-off its debts, resuscitate Fiji Airways and – you’ve got it – new airline, no debts?
This writer, having partaken of one quarter of the contents of those ‘Cattle Class’ meal boxes has a question for HFFT Dave and minister ASK. But first please bear with me while I describe the contents of those boxes – it might change your decision to fly Air Pacific/Fiji Airways.
One small, hard, cold, presumably chocolate muffin – it looked so sorry for itself that I didn’t have the heart to eat it. One (at a guess 100ml) tub of guava juice. One (ditto amount) Yoplait Banana yoghurt. One heaped dessert spoon of minutely chopped pawpaw and pineapple – I think – I can’t be certain. The yoghurt was delicious, but many people hate the stuff. Juice was okay. But now I’m wondering how many of those cartons printed ‘Air Pacific’ were purchased since we all know that the more of that type of item you buy the cheaper it is. Oh – but what the heck – they’d be part of the write-off if there is one, wouldn’t they?
Here’s the question. With Air Pacific gone and its debts perhaps written off, would that 400 million ‘borrowed’ from the FNPF be re-paid and returned to the pensioners it rightfully belongs to? Silver surfers – don’t hold your collective breath – a gut feeling tells me that money has gone – to paraphrase Monty Python: ‘It’s Ex-money, deceased, finished, DEAD!’
15 Tuesday May 2012
Posted in Grey Power Editor
Fast Talking High Flying Dave has got the support of the Air Pacific Board and the Fiji Government to agree to renaming the airline what it was named 42 years ago Fiji Airways.
Shakespeare said a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Well unless FTHF Dave lifts his game the name change will not mean a thing. Heaven forbid it might even reflect badly on everything Fiji
With total mismanagement, FTHF Dave has promised much and delivered little, the airline has not been keeping to promised schedules, has demoralised staff, has pre-packed cardboard carton meals that clearly FTHF Dave has not been eating himself.. (getting to be a Fat Cat Dave), have all contributed to the downturn of Air Pacific. (read our previous posts before the name change was suggested, it was obvious to everyone who travelled)
Prior to receiving the new aircraft ( which research exercises have shown will not be able to handle Fiji’s essential cargo exports ), FTHF and getting FAT Dave, must lift the airlines standards and prove that the airline can be dependable by showing good management and not making promises he is incapable of keeping. Otherwise he should make the new name “PIE IN THE SKY”
27 Friday Apr 2012
Posted in Grey Power Editor, Health Hints
Greetings to all of those who have grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. A truly enjoyable and fun activity for young people is coming to Fiji – and it is healthy, too!
Silver surfers who attended Marist or Suva Grammar will probably remember workouts in the ‘gym’, but for many years gymnastics has been a forgotten sport. No longer – for gymnastics is returning to Fiji.
With the support of the Department of Youth and Sport, a company, ‘Gymnastics (Fiji)’ has been registered and eagerly awaits the arrival of gymnastics coach Robert Yeal in early August, in time for the start of term 3 on September 3rd.
Gymnastics maintains good health and fitness levels, strength and flexibility. But in addition it teaches high discipline, co-ordination, concentration, body posture and awareness, and focus – all of which greatly improve a pupil’s learning ability. The minimum age for gymnastics is 5 years.
The sport is progressive; starting with floor work, the young person learns the correct way to walk and run, cartwheel, somersault, back-flip and more; eventually joining these acrobatic moves together to create a variety of routines. This eventually leads to work on the ‘horse’, the bars and the rings.
Robert will set up his first gymnastics club in Suva, where he will also begin to train 2 local coaches – hopefully one from Vanua Levu since Gymnastics (Fiji) plans to eventually open gymnastics clubs in all the main centres. Robert will travel Fiji-wide to set these up.
It is hoped that there will be enough young gymnasts to compete, at a basic level, in the 2013 Coca-Cola Games. Perhaps even the South Pacific Games in 2014 – and who knows – one day even the Olympics!
Robert wants Fiji to lead the way for gymnastics in the South Pacific and hopes that other island nations will soon send young adults to Fiji to train as coaches and spread the good word about gymnastics.
Finally, gymnastics is not an expensive sport. There are some rules and regulations concerning clothing worn for classes; and there are also rules concerning safety. For competition an official ‘Gymnastics (Fiji)’ uniform with our logo will be worn; we hope to find sponsors to provide these when the time comes.
But there is more! Robert is a qualified dance teacher and will be giving dance classes too, as dance is an integral part of gymnastics. He teaches ballet; but also jazz dance and street dance, both of which young people today really enjoy.
Silver Surfers; please spread the word! For those who wish to express an interest in taking up this sport or training to be a coach, please contact our Press & Promotions Officer, Paulini at gymnasticsfiji@gmail.com with your contact details and Robert will get in touch when he arrives.
Robert Yeal completed his secondary education at Suva Grammar School and has always vowed to return one day to contribute something positive toFiji’s young people. He is a UK qualified gymnastics and dance teacher who worked on the London stage for a number of years in musicals such as CATS and STARLIGHT EXPRESS. He is affiliated with the UK governing body the ‘British Gymnastics Association’. He teaches in more than 30 schools in the UK and has founded 6 gymnastics clubs. His own club employs 3 coaches and teaches over 200 children; competitive and non-competitive
23 Monday Apr 2012
Posted in Articles & Reports, Grey Power Editor
The delayed payout by Fiji National Provident Fund to pensioners on Friday has been labeled as outrageous and shameful by a Former Opposition Leader.
Mick Beddoes said that this latest delay was not the first that expecting pensioners have had to endure waiting for their payout and that it will do nothing to improve the lack of trust that people have for FNPF.
GREY POWER SAYS:
It goes far beyond shameful, Aisake Taito has been erratic and incompetent since he took control as CEO of our pension funds. Firstly he stated that the changes would take place over five years, then he changed his tune, and has kept changing it ever since. There is no TRUST in the FNPF any longer, Taito’s word is worth less than a cup full of cold water, as a result of this, all trust in the FNPF is gone, and if this man continues to mismanage the fund, the end result is inevitable, the fund will collapse. Why is Frank doing nothing about this ??
Greybeard
18 Wednesday Apr 2012
Posted in Grey Power Editor, Letters
Many, many years ago my father remarked upon a mixed-race marriage about to take place with some disgust, ‘One of these days the whole bloody world will be khaki coloured!’
Anderson Cooper of CNN has initiated a debate about racism. CNN research has shown that children of all races, aged 6 and under, have zero racial prejudice. By the time that they have turned 13, the white kids have a 70% racial prejudice against black kids – but the black kids have only a 40% prejudice against white kids. The consensus seems to be that this is due to their parents’ inability to contemplate the possibility of a mixed-race marriage and so, as their kids begin to grow towards puberty, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, their brainwashing of their kids begins. It goes so far as parents forbidding their kids to bring home friends of another colour – and even forbidding them to even have friends of a different colour. So much for ‘Christian’ America.
And now, here in Fiji ‘the way the world should be’, one of our paramount chiefs, a mere two and a half years or so before elections, has opened the bidding with a race card. (She reminds me of the parliamentarian, also a woman, who some years ago called Fiji’s Indians ‘weeds’ – televised in Parliament no less.)
Well, this chief gets it half right when she claims that ethnicity ‘is a fact of life’. It is indeed a fact of life – an irrational, unintelligent, and hate-filled fact of life which no chiefly leader should condone, support or propound.
Racism yanks schoolyard bullying out of the playground and into the adult world and it all boils down to S E X sex. Not fear of sex, no – but fear of what sex between people of different races might produce. Someone who is not like US! Someone who is different, and different is unknown, and unknown is scary, and scary is to be avoided at all costs.
Has this paramount chief thought this through? Does she realise what she might have unleashed? One has to ask, does she read anything at all? Does she pay attention to world affairs? Has she ever read a history book? After reading Graham Davis’ report (unfortunately given prominence by the Sun on its front page) I think not.
He refers to this person as the Boadicea of the South Pacific – I’d call her the female Ian Paisley – the rabidly poisonous parson of Northern Ireland who promoted religious intolerance and hatred there, spitting his venom into people’s faces and TV cameras.
The problem is that that sort of venom, religious or racist, actually works. It works for the simple reason that we human beings – each and every one of us – likes to think that we are ‘special’; and the easiest way to go about that is not to work hard to truly be special, but to claim a superior ‘otherness’ compared to others.
Royalty, nobles and chiefs are actually born superior to the rest of us, and therefore ‘special’ – but think about this: they are only ‘special’ because we, the so-called commoners, are prepared to grant them their special status. They are superior because we permit them to claim so: and special because we allow them to be. (This of course ignores the very obvious economic advantages of being ‘superior’ and therefore ‘special’)
So – if we are neither prepared to work hard to become special people in our own right, nor simply accept our lot, there are two (im)-perfect solutions. Religion or Race. We can simply claim that our religion or race is superior, and therefore ‘special’. If we can claim superiority of both religion and race we’ve can really feel ‘special’!
And we human beings have been doing that since time immemorial. Just look at all those ‘hosts’ and ‘nations’ who vanished in biblical times. Remember Ireland and later, Northern Ireland. Think back to Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Cambodia. And as I write, consider Africa and the Middle East. It is all about religion and race.
Most chiefs are getting on a bit – but they unfortunately have a very real grey-power: no longer the GCC and the dough, but certainly the influence, and they are not likely to give that up without a struggle, no matter how many sevu-sevus and apologising ceremonies they grant the PM.
So – here we have an extremely important and ‘special’ chief who one day very soon might have to look back on a blood-bath and eat her words. She has chosen to be divisive rather than inclusive. I quote…’racial calamity’. She is warning us all about a possible ‘racial calamity’? She’s herself will be the cause of it! It is her responsibility to promote understanding, tolerance, and unity.
So what did I reply to my father all those years ago? I told him that the sooner the world was all khaki coloured the better the world would be.
27 Tuesday Mar 2012
Posted in Letters
How ironic that Tevita Nagataleka should respond immediately to my letter regarding government borrowings from FNPF (FT 22/12), and has even invited me to meet with him to clarify my concerns regarding the above, yet the Chairman of FNPF Board has not had the courtesy of responding nor even acknowledging correspondence directed to him from various pensioners over a period of time it’s as if we do not exist!
It appears that FNPF are selective when it comes to answering questions, a good example being those that were posed by various pensioners to FNPF during the public meetings that were held with regard to products and options being offered, following FNPF advising of their intention to cut our pensions.
In some instances, the security guards endeavoured to take microphones away, some pensioners were merely ignored and fobbed off, while others were met by a wall of stony silence. So Mr Nagataleka, thanks but no thanks to your invitation.
There is no transparency in either the former FNPF Act nor the present 2011 FNPF Decree. Neither is there transparency in the processes that go through the Reserve Bank of Fiji. Why are there restrictions on offshore investments?
More smoke, and more mirrors?
And, according to an article several weeks back in the local newspapers, the FNPF Board maintains that they own the FNPF and not the members. Now how did that happen and since when? Is it not members’ funds and how and why do they not have a say?
The FNPF continues to reiterate and emphasise in their recent full page advertisement, that pensioners live longer than the population at large. Says who and what type of objectionable attitude is this against senior citizens? The pensions that we are receiving are by contract that is all we expect nothing more, nothing less and it now appears that FNPF fooled all of us into buying into this scheme under false pretences, by now making it null and void.
TALEI BURNESS
Suva
24 Saturday Mar 2012
Posted in Grey Power Editor
Aisake Taito continues to keep saying FNPF members should not subsidise the pensions of other members who have retired. Totally ignoring the fact that people currently drawing pensions subsidised others in the past.
Does Aisake Taito ever ask himself who pays his salary and who will pay his civil service pension??..
IT IS OTHERS !, it is the taxpayers of Fiji, including pensioners and children who pay tax in the form of VAT on nearly everything they buy. It is these people who pay Aisake Taito his wages and who will be paying his civil service pension.
Is he really as stupid as he appears to be. Because if he is, Frank should either arrange for him to have a scholarship in logistics, or boot his useless arse out into the private sector. where he would surely starve.
Fiji Pensioners 