Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama is expected to appear before the Privileges Committee today.

Bainimarama did not appear yesterday afternoon as he had to attend the Flying Fijians farewell dinner in Nadi last night.

Bainimarama is expected to give his side of the story on the alleged personal attack by Pio Tikoduadua and also the altercations between him and the Opposition MP.

Yesterday, Tikoduadua, NFP Leader Professor Biman Prasad and Lenora Qereqeretabua were summoned to appear before the committee.

Prasad says they will maintain their stance on the issue.

“We’ve been summoned to appear before the Committee, we obviously as you know we’ve written to the Speaker about the issue of standing order 134, we standby that comment that we made”

In their letter to the Speaker, Prasad stated they were surprised with the Speaker’s decision to refer the case to the Privileges Committee as Tikoduadua has not raised this as a matter of privilege under the Standing Order 134.

However, Ratu Epeli clearly informed parliament on Monday that after having considered all relevant materials he has decided under Standing Order 134, subsection 2 (a) there has been a prima facie breach of privilege by Bainimarama and Tikoduadua on 9th August, 2019.

Ratu Epeli also informed the House that the Prime Minister visited his Chambers on the day of the alleged altercation and apologized, while also offering to apologise to Tikoduadua in the presence of the Speaker.

The House was also informed that Ratu Epeli then attempted to arrange a meeting, but this did not eventuate because Tikoduadua was unavailable.