Tag Archives: pension

Professor Wadan Narsey makes a request: March 2026.

17 Tuesday Mar 2026

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I request Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka to note that the FNPF, for the first time, has admitted that a Pension Buffer Fund (PBF) had been established in 1975 and also that it had also been invested for income like all other funds in its possession (FNPF Statement, The Fiji Times, March 7, 2026).

In many of my previous articles I had pointed out (as had the late Jackson Mar independently) that with the proper crediting of interest income, the Pension Buffer Fund had accumulated to more than enough in 2011 to pay the 2012 Pensioners without drawing on the funds allocated to the General Members or drawing on government subsidies.

This last FNPF statement, in response to the article by Daniel Fatiaki and me, falsely denied this latter basic fact while still alleging, falsely, that for FNPF to make full restitution to the 2012 Pensioners, they would need to draw on funds belonging to the General Members or Government.

The FNPF statement of March 7, 2026 went on to speculate on a whole range of solvency issues, nothing to do with the claims by the 2012 Pensioners for fulfilment of their lawful contracts with FNPF, unilaterally broken by FNPF in 2012. There is no need to discuss these other issues which are mere red herrings thrown up by the FNPF management and board.

Here I draw on FNPF’s own statement of March 7, 2026, admitting the existence of the Pension Buffer Fund, and my estimates of its likely size in 1999, 2011 and 2025.

I also regret that the FNPF board and management are now acting like accessories justifying the illegal theft of the 2012 Pensioners’ lawful property.

The Pension Buffer Fund (PBF) set up by Parliament

FNPF has now acknowledged that the PBF was set up by the Ratu Mara Government in 1975 through parliamentary approval for a 2 cents injection from all FNPF members.

Of course, it could be seen as “unfair” to those FNPF members contributing, but who would eventually not take the pension option when they reached 55.

But the primary objective of the Ratu Mara Government was to encourage those retiring at age 55 to take the pension option which would support them until the end of their lives, rather than take the lump sum which in Fiji tended to be frittered away all too soon.

Most importantly, the decision to set up the PBF was a parliamentary decision and therefore the “law” which has to be obeyed, not the views of actuaries seeking generous income from FNPF or World Bank experts who are never accountable to local people anywhere in the world.

The late Jackson Mar and myself have independently estimated that by 1999, the PBF with interest would have accumulated to $535 millions, when pension annuities that year were less than $25m annually.

Clearly, the PBF even then was more than capable of paying another 20 years of pensions without resorting to General Members’ Funds or Government subsidies.

So quite sensibly, the 2 cents injection into the PBF was stopped by Parliament in 1999 and that was also the law and had to be obeyed.

What was also passed by Parliament in 1999 was the higher pension annuity rates steadily coming down from 25 per cent to 15 per cent (by 1 percentage point per year), which I had argued against when I was in the Fiji Parliament in 1999.

I had stated then (and it is in the Hansards records) that the Pension Annuity Rate should have been reduced immediately to 15 per cent, but Parliament decided otherwise. Those higher relatively generous Pension Annuity Rates also were approved by Parliament and became the law.

But the PBF kept growing

Despite the high annuity rates and pensions paid, the PBF kept growing, especially if it had been credited properly with interest.

How utterly outrageous that the FNPF statement (FT March 7, 2026) claims “the assertion that interest should have been credited to the PBF has no basis in law. The PBF was not a separate ring-fenced account owed exclusively by pensioners.”

Hullo, we have never said the PBF was “owned” by pensioners. We have said the PBF was set up by the Fiji Parliament precisely for the purpose of paying pensions and receiving the lump sums of those reaching 55 and choosing the pension option.

The FNPF statement (March 7, 2026) itself acknowledges that the PBF “formed part of the over-all pooled investment fund. All assets were invested collectively and investment income was managed as part of the broader fund reserves”.

Clearly, those funds allocated to the PBF by the Fiji Parliament decision through the 2 cents injection were also earning income. So why should there be any law to stipulate that the PBF should have received interest? Why should the PBF be denied the same interest that was credited to other funds invested by the FNPF?

We point out that by 2011, the PBF ought to have had around $903m, when the total pensions being paid out was a mere $49m, i.e. the FNPF even then was in a position to pay another 18 years of pensions at that level – more than enough given that average life expectancy was only around 65 for males and 67 for females.

It was therefore outrageous for FNPF to claim in 2012 that the PBF would run out in just a few years (as they did in a graph) in order to justify their reduction of the Pension Annuity Rate from 15 per cent to 8.7 per cent.

We do not dispute FNPF reducing the PAR to 8.75% after 2012

Let us be clear that the 2012 Pensioners do not dispute the right of FNPF to reduce the Pension Annuity Rate after 2012 to 8.7 per cent, but that should have been applied only to new retirees at age 55.

What the 2012 Pensioners disputed and took to court was FNPF’s decision to apply that reduction of Pension Annuity Rate to existing pensioners who had lawful contracts signed with FNPF on the 9NOP forms, which declared that they could not change their minds after they signed that Form 9NOP.

FNPF strangely went against the advice from one of their ethical actuaries (Shona Tomkins from firm Promontory) who had stated that reduction of existing pensions would be against “the law of contracts”.

But FNPF callously ignored that sensible advice. Although in a Key Features Statement clearly admitted their guilt when they tried to assure future new retirees “The rates in Table 1 will be regularly reviewed by the FNPF board subject to actuarial advice. Any change in rates in the future will only affect new purchasers, not those who have already purchased the product.”

Ha ha ha. too late for the 2012 Pensioners?

While the FNPF called the reduction of pensions a “reform” it resulted in a total disaster which the FNPF (board and management) to this day have still not acknowledged despite what they can see with their eyes: the total collapse of the Pension Take Up Rate to below 4 per cent by those reaching age 55.

Today, 98 per cent of all retirees at age 55 (yes, 98 out of every 100 new retirees) refuse to take the pension option, but take their lump sums. They do not trust the FNPF after the 2012 robbery.

No amount of costly “rebranding” by the FNPF management and board is going to take away that disastrous reality of totally collapsed Pension Take Up rates. No amount of lipstick on a pig will change the fact that it is a pig.

Note that the FNPF board and all its members blatantly ignore the collapse of the Pension Take Up Rate: It is not even mentioned in their annual reports.

Instead, both FNPF board members and senior management in 2011 went on a propaganda rampage alleging that the FNPF would be made insolvent unless they reduced not just the pension rate for future retirees, but also existing pensioners.

The FNPF article of March 7, 2026, is still making those fallacious arguments against the 2012 Pensioners’ claims when it was abundantly clear that the PBF had more than enough in 2012 to pay the existing pensions without drawing on General Members funds.

We have also shown that the PBF in 2025 with interest credited would have around $1382m.

This massive sum is far more than needed to pay for full restitution of the 2012 Pensioners (backpay plus ongoing pensions at the pre-2012 rate), and still leave some $800m for General Members and the FNPF solvency reserves.

So why do the FNPF board and management keep repeating the falsehood that the General Members or Government will have to “cross-subsidise” the 2012 Pensioners?

Other irrelevant FNPF arguments

Throughout the FNPF statement, over and over, there are claims of FNPF after 2012 needing to satisfy “solvency requirements” set by international “authorities” like World Bank or actuaries.

There is ample data to show that FNPF has never lacked for adequate liquidity.

I see no need to address these arguments as they are totally irrelevant to the claims of the 2012 Pensioners which are based entirely on the illegal trashing of their lawful signed contracts with FNPF (clearly pointed out by former Chief Justice Daniel Fatiaki) and the adequacy of the Pension Buffer Reserve (pointed out by the late Jackson Mar and myself).

FNPF Employees and Board now” accessories” to a robbery

More than a year ago, the FNPF chairman (Daksesh Patel) had lamented to me that while he fully sympathised with the 2012 Pensioners, his “hands were tied” by the 2011 Decrees.

But with this FNPF statement of March 7, 2026, it is clear now that the FNPF management and board members are willing to be accessories to the FNPF’s criminal seizure of the property of the 2012 Pensioners by using all kinds of false arguments to justify it.

Far from being FNPF employees and board members accountable to all FNPF members including the 2012 Pensioners, they have become accessories justifying the 2012 restructuring which the previous Minister of Finance called “illegal”.

Why address PM and not the Minister of Finance?

Why am I addressing Prime Minister Rabuka in this article and not the new Minister of Finance?

Sadly, even though the previous Minister of Finance (Professor of Economics Biman Prasad) had labelled the FNPF action against the 2012 Pensioners as “illegal”, the recent statement by the new Minister of Finance suggests that he does not have the financial acumen to understand the intricacies of FNPF lies about the 2012 Pensioners’ claims.

The new Minister of Finance still calls the 2012 restructure “reforms” the way the FNPF board and management have done consistently.

The new Minister of Finance does not seem to understand that he should not even have issued that statement he did a few weeks ago given that the 2012 Pensioners’ claims are not against Government, but against the FNPF.

Indeed, what role did the FNPF board and senior management have in that statement by the new Minister of Finance?

It is tragic that while the board and FNPF management are supposed to be accountable to all FNPF members and pensioners (including the 2012 Pensioners) they have steadfastly refused to be accountable.

When the previous Minister of Finance (Professor Prasad) had informed me a few months ago that he would consider some compromise solution, I had requested anonymous data on an Excel spreadsheet from the FNPF board on the approximate numbers of 2012 Pensioners, their monthly pensions and their ages, in 2012 and 2025.

I have been contemplating some compromise equitable solution which would fully restore all the low income pensions (including their backpay by three instalments) and put some moderate monthly cap on well-off pensioners so as to reduce the total financial liability for FNPF (I had suggested a cap of around $5000 per month). I am confident most high income pensioners would accept some compromise in order to benefit the low income pensioners.

Sadly, despite all their grand claims in their Vision and Mission Statements about accountability, both the FNPF board and the Minister of Finance have declined to provide me with this information which has absolutely nothing confidential.

How extraordinary and arrogant that FNPF declares in its March 7, 2026, statement “The FNPF does not intend to make further public comments in this matter.”

May I request the Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka to consider the facts that are in this article and discuss a constructive way forward with his new Minister of Finance, the FNPF board chairman and the 2012 Pensioners’ Core Group (chaired by Ross MacDonald) perhaps with the previous Minister of Finance in attendance given that he would understand all the financial issues discussed here.

FIJI TIMES OPINION | Fiji government betrayal of 2012 pensioners and rule of law Features By PROFESSOR WADAN NARSEY AND DANIEL FATIAKI

22 Sunday Feb 2026

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By: Mick Beddoes.

A week ago, the newly appointed Minister of Finance, Esrom Immanuel, out of the blue, issued a “Government statement on 2012 FNPF Reform” (communicated to the 2012 pensioner’s core group Chairman Ross MacDonald).

This statement represents firstly, a horrendous betrayal of the 2012 pensioners who had suffered the robbery of their property (i.e. irrevocable pensions) by the Bainimarama military regime and who have struggled for restitution after the Rabuka Coalition Government took office at the end of 2022.

Secondly, the MoF statement is also an egregious betrayal of parliamentary “rule of law” by explicitly using as a justification, the imposed dictates of the 2013 Constitution which has never been ratified by any Parliament or referendum, but instead, was unilaterally imposed on Fiji by the unelected Bainimarama/Sayed-Khaiyum military regime.

Sadly, this MoF statement is thereby also implicitly justifying the treasonous overthrow in 2006 of the democratically elected Qarase Government and all the illegal decrees that came after and were entrenched in the 2013 Constitution.

Can Fiji afford to give the message that “crime pays”.

Not ‘reform’ but robbery

THE personal pain and suffering of the 2012 pensioners have been frequently described in the media by letter writers such as Ronnie Chang, Rick Rickman, Dewan Chand, Colin Deoki, Libby Reade-Fong and many others who continue to write every week.

We remind that the reductions imposed on the 2012 pensioners by the military decrees was not any “reform” as euphemistically claimed, but a blatant robbery of their lawful property.

In 2012, the Bainimarama regime and FNPF broke the irrevocable contracts which had been offered to pensioners by FNPF on its own 9NOP forms.

These forms specified a pre-quantified pension payable per month (in dollars) for life, in return for FNPF taking over their accumulated lump sums at age 55.

The form specifically stated that no changes by the pensioners would be allowed. Neither did FNPF’s 9NOP Form permit or authorise FNPF to unilaterally change, amend, or alter its solemn undertakings given under it.

Through FNPF’s illegal breaking of contracts (which its consultants Promontory had specifically advised against) FNPF forced the 2012 pensioners to accept one of several options offered:

• accepting a reduced pension; or

• withdrawing their original lump sums; or

• adopting some combination of the two; or

• taking an annuity.

All options inevitably led to financial loss for the 2012 pensioners in the long term, with all their foregone entitlements being enjoyed by FNPF. It is a fundamental foundation of all good legal systems that wrong-doers should never be allowed to benefit from their wrong doing!!

The unelected Bainimarama/Sayed-Khaiyum regime also issued unratified Decree No.51 that illegally reduced pensions and stopped the lawful challenge of the late David Burness which was already being heard in the High Court. They thereby denied the 2012 pensioners their basic international human right to take their legitimate grievances to court for redress.

This statement by the new Minister of Finance is a sad reversal of the position adopted by his predecessor (Professor Biman Prasad) who, in his 2024 budget speech, had labelled this unilateral breaking of the pensioners’ contracts as “illegal”.

Using taxpayer funds, Prof Prasad had prospectively restored the pensions of those who had accepted reduced pensions, but he did not address the others who had also lost out, nor was there any settlement of back-pay.

So why, did the current Minister of Finance in his statement call the 2012 robbery of property belonging to the 2012 pensioners a “reform” as FNPF had tried to call it in 2012 ?

Who indeed are the people who drafted the minister’s statement which was allegedly approved by Cabinet?

The MoF statement merely states that “Cabinet has made the decision that there will be no backdated reinstatement of these pension payments… The total estimated cost is about $582 million, including about $372 million in backdated payments and a further $210 million in future liabilities.”

While we can accept these numbers for the moment, importantly, the rest of the MoF statement is full of erroneous misstatements and outright lies which have been perpetuated for more than 15 years by FNPF managements and boards.

Let us focus on the outright lies before we come to the “rule of law” betrayals which are the “elephants in the room” with significant long-term implications for Fiji.

Outright lie No.1: Ignoring the Pension Buffer Fund (PBF)

The MoF statement claims that: “Reinstating pensions backdated to 2012 would undermine (FNPF’s) sustainability and would require either the use of other members’ funds to subsidise previously high and actuarially unsustainable pension rates or significant additional fiscal resources beyond Government’s financial capacity. FNPF does not have the capacity to absorb this cost without compromising member balances and future returns.” This is a blatant outright lie.

The FNPF has always had the ability to pay for the lawfully contracted pensions because the democratically elected Parliament under the able leadership of the late Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, established a Pension Buffer Fund (PBF) in 1975 precisely to pay for these pension liabilities.

All FNPF members at the time including most of the present aggrieved pensioners were required by a law of Parliament, to inject 2 cents in the dollar into the PBF between 1975 until 1998, when the cash injection was stopped by a similarly elected Parliament (as also was its sovereign right).

The law also provided a Government loan guarantee that could be resorted to whenever FNPF was unable to meet its financial commitments.

Inexplicably, however, in 2000 without any explanation by FNPF in its annual reports, the parliamentary established Pension Buffer Fund was absorbed into the General Reserve. Who in FNPF authorized this move which undermined an Act of Parliament?

The account was still maintained in name by FNPF and received all the lump sum balances of members who chose the pension option and from which was paid out, the contracted pensions.

But the FNPF Board omitted (or perhaps refused) to pay interest into the Pension Buffer Fund even though (as part of all FNPF Reserves) also invested to earn income. That interest income from the PBF was then improperly credited to the benefit of all members, but not the pensioners.

We say that a statute that provides inter alia for the payment of interest generally and which does not expressly exclude or prohibit the payment of interest to a specified account, is obliged to pay interest to the unspecified account.

Had the Buffer Fund been credited with the interest all other funds were being credited with, even in 2011 when the robbery took place, Narsey has estimated that the Buffer Fund would have amounted to a massive $877 million.

This figure far exceeds the $582 million supposedly required to pay for the full restitution of the 2012 pensioners’ irrevocable contracts (the MoF statement informed that the $582 million comprised $372 million for backpay and $210 million to be paid for future pensions).

Narsey has estimated that by 2025 the Pension Buffer Fund receiving its due interest income, receiving new pensioners’ lump sums on retirement and paying pensions, would have a credit of $1,382 millions (more than a billion).

In other words in paying what is due to the wronged 2012 pensioners, FNPF would today still have a surplus of $800 million in the Pension Buffer Fund, if it had been properly credited with interest as it should have been.

Contrary to claims in the MoF statement, full restitution to the 2012 pensioners can be made without any need for subsidies from General Members who would indeed still be profiting by $800 million. There would certainly not be any need whatsoever for any subsidy from Government.

If the backpay is done in three installments (as Narsey has previously suggested in his The Fiji Times article of December 13 2025: The 2012 FNPF Pensioners’ Robbery: the way forward”), only $132 million per year would be required for the backpay (and only for the first three years), and perhaps a mere $20 million annually for continuing pensions (currently paying $23 million annually).

Given the buoyancy of FNPF annual financial flows according to it’s annual reports, FNPF can easily accommodate restitution to the 2012 pensioners, as even greater adjustments were made during the recent COVID period.

But the Coalition Government, the Fiji Parliament and Fiji should note the far more dangerous long term implications of the MoF statement for Fiji’s Rule of Law and Parliamentary Democracy.

A brutal dagger into the Fiji’s rule of law

Soon after the Fiji Government had changed, there was a light satirical piece by lawyer Richard Naidu “Rule of law – Maybe a time for Aiyaz to reflect” (FT Jan 28 2023). More on Richard Naidu below as he is currently a legal adviser to FNPF.

Readers would be better off reading a far more serious article Narsey wrote on the universal principles of good “rule of law” (FT 16 March 2024: “The rule of law cancer in Fiji”) when he had called on the Rabuka Government to urgently address unresolved constitutional issues in its term in Parliament.

One essential cog in the rule of law “wheel” Narsey had pointed out was that laws must be made and changed in an open and transparent way by the people and all decisions must be made by a representative elected Government.

In complete contrast, no one knows to this day who were responsible for the drafting of the 2013 Constitution, which was never passed by an elected Parliament or adopted in a public referendum.

Yet somewhat ironically, to change a sentence in the 2013 Constitution, the draftsman demanded that there must be a three quarters majority vote in Parliament followed by a three quarters “yes” vote in a referendum of all the registered voters in Fiji (not voters actually voting), a virtual impossibility.

With far reaching implications for the rule of law are sentences in the MoF statement that use as justification for Government’s impotence and inertia, the provisions of the 2013 Constitution. These sentences plunge a dagger into the heart of the Constitution as a “living document”.

The MoF statement thus asserts: “The 2013 Constitution of the Republic of Fiji provides clear legal guidance on this matter. Section 173(3) expressly prohibits Parliament or Government from enacting any law that would retrospectively alter the legal effect of the 2012 FNPF reforms. This means Government cannot undo past decisions, restore old pension rates from 2012, or authorize compensation, damages, or backdated payments arising from those reforms. Any such action would be unconstitutional.”

How extraordinary that the MoF statement asserts that in resolving the case of the 2012 pensioners, the elected Coalition Government must strictly abide by a self-proclaimed Constitution that begins with a blatant untruth : “We , the people of Fiji …..hereby establish this Constitution…”.

What is more, the same document has never been accepted in a national referendum nor has it been scrutinised, debated and passed by an elected Fijian Parliament despite the Bainimarama Government being in effective control from 2006 to 2022 and despite it winning 2 parliamentary elections.

Undermining sacred principle of parliamentary democracy

How utterly extraordinary that the unknown, nameless, and faceless individuals who drafted the 2013 Constitution can with the stroke of disingenuity, insert a clause that boldly asserts that no future Parliament can enact any law that would retrospectively “alter the legal effect of the 2012 FNPF reforms”.

We have no hesitation in rejecting such an unprecedented wholesale trashing of the long established doctrine of “parliamentary supremacy” which declares that a democratically elected Parliament must have absolute sovereignty and can make or unmake any law it chooses.

This also means some unnamed creator of the 2013 Constitution cannot bind or hamstring a future democratically elected Parliament, as all democratically elected Parliaments have the same unlimited legislative powers to enact laws for the peace, order and good government of Fiji and its people at any point in time.

How extraordinary also that the MoF statement ignores a recent Supreme Court opinion that was sought by the Coalition Government itself where the court opined inter alia that the amendment provisions of the 2013 Constitution were not set in stone, but that two thirds of the elected Parliament and a simple majority in a referendum would be enough to change elements in the Constitution.

The Supreme Court also declined to recognise the validity of parts of sections 173 which is referred to in the MoF’s ‘Statement’.

Ignoring “property” rights of the 2012 pensioners

It is extraordinary that The MoF statement asserts “Section 26 of the Constitution protects property rights. The retirement savings of FNPF members constitutes their private property. Using those funds to finance retrospective reinstatement would amount to taking members’ property without consent and would expose Government and FNPF to significant legal challenge”.

Pray, what about the even earlier and similar property rights of the 2012 pensioners? Aren’t they also entitled to the same protection?

Their property rights were forcibly taken and altered without their consent by a military regime and without any compensation in the 2012 robbery.

Indeed, the restitution that the 2012 pensioners have called for would come completely from the PBF, not the General Members’ balances or property rights.

Note that the PBF surpluses which strictly belong to pensioners have instead been used for the benefit of the General Members for more than twenty and they continue to rise annually even now.

Why is it that the legal advisers of the MoF and FNPF so brazenly ignore the property rights of the robbed 2012 pensioners?

Who are FNPF’s legal advisers?

We have no idea if there was any input of FNPF lawyers into the MoF statement.

But we do know that in a meeting that the core group of the 2012 pensioners had with the FNPF Board a few months ago (with Narsey attending by zoom from Melbourne), Richard Naidu was present and spoke as FNPF’s lawyer.

Astonishingly Naidu lectured us at length on the need for FNPF to follow the “law” as it stood. He repeated over and over that the 2011 Decrees stopped the FNPF from addressing the 2012 pensioners’ grievances.

Richard Naidu made no mention of the dastardly origins of the 2013 Constitution as opposed to the 1997 Constitution which had been approved by both Houses of the Fiji Parliament yet treasonously trashed by the Bainimarama Government.

The MoF statement also totally ignored that the core group in its submissions to Government and the FNPF Board had included, with the assistance of former chief justice Daniel Fatiaki, a draft Bill which would set aside the FNPF Act 2011 and the FNPF Transition Act 2011.

Most pensioners have had the greatest of respect for FNPF’s lawyer Richard Naidu, as an ethical and courageous opponent of military coups, illegal governments and media censorship, despite his persecution by military regimes.

Just three years ago when the Bainimarama Government tried to criminalise him over a trivial social media post, Professor Narsey wrote an article defending Naidu, published internationally by Asia Pacific Review (15 October 2022 “Shameful silences at another unfolding tragedy in Fiji”).

The 2012 pensioners would like to hope that ethical FNPF’s lawyers, including Richard Naidu, would have some professional sympathy for the 2012 Pensioners whose lawful irrevocable contracts were trashed by FNPF, their property stolen, and their lawful case in court thrown out, denying them their fundamental human right to go to court.

The 2012 pensioners hope that the legal justice of their case and avenues for lawful solution, are recognised by FNPF’s ethical lawyers who could then ethically advise FNPF to seek a lawful and just settlement, especially as the 2012 pensioners are prepared to consider compromises to enable speedy resolution.

Sadly, their numbers dwindle by the week.

A FAIR SETTLEMENT

13 Tuesday Feb 2024

Posted by in Letters to FNPF

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The following is an excellent suggestion and a fair settlement for the surviving elderly of Fiji who were cheated out of legal pensions by corrupt individuals who later legalised their actions with the support of gutless individuals who happily danced to a despicable man’s tune.

The question is, “Are the 8+ FNPF executives on an annual remuneration package of $325,000+ per annum, going to agree, or are they waiting for the aged individuals they cheated to all die”?

**************

Minister of Finance (Professor Biman Prasad) and Chairman FNPF (Mr Daksesh Patel)

FNPF Board Members FNPF Board Secretary

Chairman of ad hoc Committee representing 2012 pensioners (Professor Vijay Naidu)

Dear Sirs/Madam

1.  I would be grateful if you would table this request at the next FNPF Board Meeting for consideration by the Board in consultation with the Minister of Finance.

2. The Minister of Finance (Professor Biman Prasad) correctly and courageously acknowledged in his last Budget Presentation that the actions of of the Bainimarama Government (and the FNPF) in 2012 to force existing FNPF pensioners to either take reduced pensions or take away a lump sum, was illegal. Also grossly illegal (and a denial of their basic human right to go to court with their grievance) was the Military Decree that stated that the Burness case already being heard in the courts would not be proceeded with. 

3. History will however ask, what did the Coalition Government do to right this illegal act, having fully acknowledged its illegality?

4. These pensioners had been freely offered and freely accepted the FNPF’s offer of a pension until they died: their lawful “property” ( no longer their lump sum left with FNPF). If they died before getting back their “lump sum” that was their hard luck. Some did fall into this category.

5. These pensions lost a large part of their property when (a) they accepted a lower pension rate than that agreed to originally by the FNPF or (b) they took away the lump sum, whose long term value was less than that of the original pensions agreed to, if they survived long enough. These sums can be easily computed by the FNPF today given that the pensions were given in dollar terms, and not inflation indexed (so ignore the impact of inflation).

6. Given that this robbery was instigated by the Bainimarama Government, the debt to those defrauded pensioners, like the Public Debt today, is the joint responsibility of  the current lawful Government and the FNPF.

7. If the pensioners were to be allowed their basic human right to seek a legal redress, it is my view that fair courts would fully restore these pensioners’ lost property going back to the illegal Decrees, and, as has been the case in the recent case of the former Solicitor General Sharma, also award punitive damages for the pain and suffering caused. There would also be the wastage of legal fees on both sides.

8.  I suggest that the current Government and the FNPF Board can go down in history as courageously correcting a horrendous blot on Fiji’s legal system by fully restoring the property of the 2012 pensioners affected by

(a) FNPF restoring and backdating the pensions of all those who had been forced to accept the lower pensions (until they died);

(b) FNPF restoring the backdated lost pensions of those who had been forced to take a lump sum (less lump sum payout), and restoring their pensions to those still alive, which they are legally entitled to under contract law.

(c) the Fiji Government (through the Minister of Finance) shouldering a half of the financial burden accruing to the FNPF through a grant to FNPF, perhaps distributed over the next three budgets, beginning 1 July 2024.

8. I believe that the FNPF is currently in a healthy financial position and has amply demonstrated its financial resilience in recovering from the COVID shock, with its surpluses helped of course, by the illegal reductions of pensions to the 2012 pensioners.

Yours sincerely

Professor Wadan Narsey

One of the 2012 Pensioners

Melbourne