Supervisor of Elections, Mohammed Saneem [left] and SODELPA General Secretary, Lenaitasi Duru

Supervisor of Elections, Mohammed Saneem is satisfied with the response provided by the Social Democratic Liberal Party in relation to a complaint raised by the FijiFirst against its provisional candidate Faith Grace.

In an article written by Grace that was carried out by Fiji Sun last month, she stated that the SODELPA government will write off the Tertiary Education Loans Scheme debts for all students.

However, she did not state how this will be done and where the funding will come from.

Following a complaint by the FijiFirst, Saneem says he had written to SODELPA seeking clarification on the promise made by Grace and the response from the party was sufficient.

“The law requires a person who makes an election promise to provide a written statement, outlining the funding of the promise. Once we wrote to SODELPA, they forwarded us their manifesto, which has the outline of all their funding for all their election promises they are making. So therefore the matter is resolved.”

FijiFirst had raised the matter with FEO on September 22nd, saying that SODELPA did not adhere to the Electoral Act, in particular, Section 116, on how it will fund such a move to write off all TELS debt.

Now that the complaint has been resolved, SODELPA General Secretary, Lenaitasi Duru says the party is happy with the outcome and they can move forward with their election preparations.

“SODELPA right now is probably the only party that has those provisions in place. The explanations of where we are going to get the money, how we are going to spend it and how we are going to fund the deficit. So we’ve got that.”

Duru says the comments made by Grace is in line with the policy of the Party with respect to education.

Meanwhile, Saneem adds the other issues raised by the FijiFirst against The People’s Alliance in a 19-page complaint are still be processed.