Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama has raised serious concerns on the overspill of sugar juice at the Lautoka, Ba and Labasa sugar mills.

While addressing the Board of the Fiji Sugar Corporation in Lautoka yesterday Bainimarama said he was surprised to note the amount of over spill of sugar waste that was unaccounted for over the years.

He said the FSC losses had accumulated over the years with little effort put in place to arrest the situation over two decades and this had been compounded by the poor mill upgrade that failed to produce the desired result over last three years.

The Prime Minister said cabinet has endorsed the Deloitte recommendations and Government through the FSC Board has moved swiftly to implement this.

But he said unfortunately, a chain of resignations of executive management has occurred which is regretted.

Commodore Bainimarama earlier told Fijivillage that the Deloitte report on the performance of FSC will now be thoroughly discussed to map out FSC=s future.

He said any steps taken would have to be assessed carefully based on the number of people depending on the sugar industry.

Bainimarama also confirmed that one of the proposals include the privatization of FSC however he stresses that these need to be analyzed.

He said FSC has huge liabilities and he said they are also assessing what the Corporation would do next after it was temporarily de-listed from the South Pacific Stock Exchange due to a lack of working capital for the next 12 months.
 
The Prime Minister said the sugar industry matters for the livelihood of more than 200,000 people and more so to the economy of Fiji.


Story by: Roneel Lal