A former Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption Assistant Complaints Officer was sentenced in the Lautoka Magistrate’s Court today.

Suliasi Sukanaivalu will serve four years and eight months in prison and pay a fine of $1,000.00 after he was found guilty of corruption-related offences.

He was charged by FICAC in 2013 with one count each of Soliciting an Advantage, Obtaining a Financial Advantage and False Statement on Oath.

In delivering the sentence, Resident Magistrate Bandula Gunaratne says that as a public officer, the accused was entrusted with honesty and loyalty, and that his actions were dishonest to his employers and breached the trust of the public layman.

He says he was a member of an independent institution that eradicated corruption.

The Accused should have been extra cautious than an ordinary government officer. He had asked for $500.00 in 2012 from an individual seeking his assistance as a public officer to recover a debt.

Furthermore, in recovering that debt he obtained $400.00 and then made a false statement to the Small Claims Tribunal Western Division, that he had served a Notice of Hearing to the individual he had collected the debt from.

The matter was adjourned to 30 August 2019 to check on the payment of the fine as failure to do so will see the Accused spend an extra one hundred days in prison.