Ritika Pratap 
FijiFirst General Secretary, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum at the FijiFirst press conference this evening.
FijiFirst General Secretary, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has hit out at the People’s Alliance Deputy Leader Manoa Kamikamica for lying about the ministerial portfolios held by the late Laisenia Qarase.
Sayed-Khaiyum says Kamikamica is either too ignorant or is deliberately obfuscating and not speaking with the lawyers in the party.
During a press conference last weekend, Kamikamica stated that Qarase never held the portfolio of Minister for Elections.
He had stated that Sayed-Khaiyum cannot be the General Secretary of a political party contesting the upcoming election and hold the Minister for Elections position.
This evening, Sayed-Khaiyum presented the gazettes during a press conference which showed that the late Lasenia Qarase who was the Prime Minister in 2001, had the Office of the Supervisor of Elections, Electoral Commission and the Constituency Boundaries Commission under his portfolio.
He says this was the same in 2006.
“These gazette notices are available in any library, go to any law firm they will have the gazette notices. You go to the government gazettes where you can buy the gazettes itself. You can go to any law library. You can go to the archives, it is available there.”
Sayed-Khaiyum adds it is concerning that certain media organizations continue to parrot anything that is said by one or two political parties as Gospel truth.
“Rabuka’s deputy leader is saying that it’s a conflict because a Minister is actually been assigned; the Elections Office or the Supervisor of Elections when he himself is a Prime Minister under his ministerial assignment, he had that. Mahendra Chaudry had that, Laisenia Qarase had that and yet they have the audacity or the inaptitude to come up and say that we are lying.”
He says the Deputy PA Leader himself should apologize to FijiFirst.
“Manoa Kamikamica probably should’ve stuck to the private sector and owes us an apology for calling us a liar. We don’t make these statements willy-nilly. We actually make statements based on facts.”
Sayed-Khaiyum says the Republic of Fiji gazettes are available and media organizations should also do their own investigations before publishing such statements made by politicians.
Gazettes:
