Justice PS shares light on Fiji's withdrawal from Election donor coordinating committee
Jul 7, 2008, 09:17

Fiji has suspended its participation from the Joint Forum Working Group after the Interim Government noted that Australia and New Zealand has continued to not appreciate the existence of genuine initiatives and efforts of the Interim Government to take Fiji forward such as the National Council for Building a Better Fiji and the proposal to develop a People’s Charter for Change, Peace and Progress.

The IG had noted that the two countries continued to procrastinate the recognition of an existence of the IG and placed travel sanctions on senior Government officials despite Fiji’s willingness to engage in dialogue.

However, the work on election preparation continues as Fiji marches on towards an election where the vote at the end of the day is a true reflection of the electorate. This does not deflect in any way the importance of the assistance promised by international partners who have in the past played a pivotal role in ensuring proper elections.

The Department of Information’s Prashila Devi talked to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice Pio Tikoduadua who revealed the latest developments on the Elections Donor Assistance front.

Department of Information (DOI): Sir, could you provide us with an update on the latest development in the preparation for the elections?

Pio Tikoduadua: This afternoon Fiji suspended its participation in the Election’s Donor Coordinating Committee (EDCC), which is a subset of the Joint Forum Working Group.

The EDCC is actually tasked to coordinate the effort of the international community to assist Fiji in preparing for the elections but what has happened is Fiji has declared its position you know as it declared its position in the Joint Forum Group.

And because the EDCC is part of that group Fiji cannot then participate at the EDCC at its present form.
However, Fiji will continue to engage with any donor that is willing to engage with Fiji at the bilateral level.
Basically what we are saying is that we are not totally severing ties with the committee so to speak but the committee is not going to meet, as it would usually do on a fortnightly basis.

Fiji is already engaging with a lot of those partners, a lot of our international partners at the bilateral level and we will continue with that and we continue to show our commitment to progressively move towards elections when Fiji is ready to do it.

Also we thank all the donor countries involved, we thank them for their participation and we thank them for continuing to engage with us in the way they have been engaging previously and we ask them to continue to engage with us, now bilaterally despite the fact that the EDCC has been suspended until further notice.

We can continue to work through this process, maybe develop on our capacity so when we are ready to have election, the Office of the Supervisor of Elections and all those other institutions responsible for it will be ready to make it happen effectively when it does.

DOI: Does the EDCC consist of Forum countries?

Tikoduadua: Yes, it does. At the moment it consist in particular Australia and New Zealand. The other Pacific Island countries are not members yet. It is mainly to do with those countries that are willing to assist Fiji financially and in kind.

DOI: Are these the countries that are in a position to help or who want to help?

Tikoduadua: It’s the people who are willing to help.

DOI: So this in no way impacts assistance from a country like India or the EU?

Tikoduadua: We have always engaged with these countries on a bilateral level or those other institutions. So really as far as I am concerned the committee (EDCC) is not meeting so to speak. However, Government has said we will continue to engage at the bilateral level, so we continue to talk.

DOI: Was there any money coming to Fiji through this committee?

Tikoduadua: Already, the Australians are topping up through the remuneration package for the Supervisor of Elections, the New Zealanders are assisting with the fleece programme with the Department of Lands that will eventually assist the Constituency Boundaries Commission to draw up the boundaries.

The EU is assisting in a big way in terms of the financing of a chief technical adviser in the Office of the Supervisor of Elections, they have a Financial Advisor coming up, the Australians are also helping in some other areas with regards to some other level of technical assistance. We are coordinating other efforts as well as the voter education and civic education particularly through the EU and the other donor countries. That’s all happening and though the outcome today, none of those countries have indicated that they will now cease their present level of engagement with us in view of these announcements. We hope to see that we continue to try and achieve the same effect despite the EDCC being temporarily suspended.

DOI: So basically the role of EDCC was to coordinate the assistance coming from these countries?

Tikoduadua: Yes, that’s correct. That’s basically what it is. It is the coordination of donor assistance to the elections process.
All the countries, Fiji will continue to engage with members of the committee at the bilateral level.

DOI: Was there any money in the pipeline through the EDCC?

Tikoduadua: That is still the subject of our discussion, the EU, most of them are presently donating in kind and some countries have expressed that they will not be giving funds directly to the Fijian Government but they may assist us in other ways through ballot boxes, vehicles, computer equipments, some software technology and other issues that relate to elections but at the moment the only country that has given us any money is Papua New Guinea. That’s the only country that has given us any money and that was last year. It was somewhere above $200,000. No other country has given us any money.

DOI: Is there any election update in terms of preparation?

Tikoduadua: It is happening. It’s going very well. We are doing our best within our constraints to prepare for elections when it is ready.



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