The Suva High court in a late night sitting yesterday was informed that out of all the heads of Government agencies, former Airports Fiji Limited CEO, Ratu Sakiusa Tuisolia incurred the highest per diem.

FICAC lawyer, Madhawa Tennakoon during cross examination in the trial where Tuisolia is charged with misusing the company credit card, with the help of a presentation highlighted that Tuisolia while being the CEO had a 30 percent per diem or travelling allowance, while the rest of the Government agencies were mostly 10 percent or had no per diem given at all.

Teenakoon also raised queries as to the use of the credit card stating that despite being given a huge per diem Tuisolia still used the credit card for unexpected expenses like entertaining guests for lunch or dinner, hotel accommodation and taxi fares while he was overseas.

When questioned, Tuisolia admitted that the per diem given to him was not enough to cover his hotel accommodation overseas to which Teenakoon highlighted that most of the hotel accommodations that Tuisolia had chosen were very expensive.

Tuisolia agreed with FICAC saying that the accommodations were expensive but he had to use these hotels as they were the venue for business meetings.

Tuisolia stressed in Court last night that the reason for choosing such expensive hotels were due to the fact that his choice was influenced by the nature of the business he was attending to at that time.

High Court Judge, Justice Sitambarampillay Thurairaja made a comment in court on behalf of the assessors saying that they had noticed an increase in the Credit card limit from $10,000 to $14,500 to which Tuisolia replied that he did not have any idea of this and only came to know of this increase last night.

Meanwhile, FICAC also queried the use of the credit card while Tuisolia was supposed to be on leave.

FICAC highlighted that during a certain period of leave taken by Tuisolia between 2003 - 2005, he made credit card transactions for various expenses in relation to entertaining business partners and stakeholders to lunch at prominent restaurants.

In reply, Tuisolia said that despite being on leave he was still obliged if the need arose to entertain on such accessions as he was still the CEO of AFL.

FICAC also highlighted the special investigation made in 2006 by the Auditor General where a major concern was a trip to Sri Lanka by both Tuisolia and the then Chairman paying for the Chairman's airfares using the company credit, to which Tuisolia agreed that he had used the credit card for air fares.

Tuisolia maintained in Court during cross examination that for whatever expense he incurred while using the credit card, he would always reimburse the amount.

The case continues today.


Story by: Sofaia Koroitanoa