The Acting Prime Minister has revealed that a local in charge of Hedging at Fiji Airways was responsible for a ninety-six million loss incurred by the national airline.

Sayed-Khaiyum made the revelations in parliament when he was asked by the Opposition on when Fiji airways will localise all positions currently held by expatriates.

Sayed-Khaiyum adds the airline made another $76m loss the following year under the leadership of the same local.

“A person who knows about hedging will be able to anticipate world prices. That’s the whole point of hedging. That’s why we hedge. Hedging is anticipatory costs involved in a particular commodity in this respect. Because they had the hedging wrong now if we had somebody who was a hedging expert, had 10-15 years of experience in hedging we wouldn’t have had this issue. So it’s correct to say there are people in Fiji there are probably no one in Fiji who’s had 15-20 years of experience in hedging.”

Hedging is a way of protecting oneself or organization against financial loss or other adverse circumstances.

Meanwhile, the Fiji Airways Group announced it’s highest ever profit of $95.8 million in March for the fiscal year ending December 2017.

Sayed-Khaiyum adds the National Airline currently has two hundred and fifty four pilots of which 158 are Fijians.