businesspeople-from-fiji

"My strategy has always been do something that is hard to follow."

"I think that we (Indo-Fijians) have a great future in this country if we can grab the opportunities that are ahead of us."

"I would never be involved in an illegal activity. I believe I was related to the coup because I was criticising the Chaudry Government. When Chaudry became Prime Minister he was very unfair to my companies, infrastructure wise, and I was taking him to court and to the media. In the midst of this the coup happened. Mr Qarase, who became the Prime Minister, was previously Assistant Chairman of one of my companies where I was the Chairman. These were the reasons that have caused the rumours. Yes, I did not like the Chaudry government but no, I was not related to the coup plot."

"I like to look for hard entries. If the entry level is easy then everybody comes in and competes with you and the country has no shortage of copycats."

"In business I believe the idea is to look for opportunities and if you do what others are doing you will never succeed."

"I went to a Harvard seminar in Sydney recently and the name of the seminar was 'Family businesses: successes and pitfalls'. The lecturer there said a typical family business is one where the founder starts it, the second generation builds it up and the third generation blows it up. Now there is a lot of truth in that."

"Indo-Fijians have a good future in Fiji but unfortunately they are being ill-advised, their community leaders lack good leadership."

"As I have chosen Fiji, having been born and raised here, as my home, indigenous Fijian aspirations and in particular, the protection of their rights to determine their own destiny, I believe, should always be paramount."

"Non-Fijian and perhaps a western interpretation could spark insensitivity from various points of view."

"No amount of legislation can guarantee lasting peace and stability if the people it is supposed to serve are not spiritually and emotionally prepared to live by them (moral values) and where necessary defend them with their lives when it is breached. (18 May 2000)"

"There are two sides to reconciliation; the law aspect and the moral values. Unless there is improvement for both, changes will not come by easily. (15 May 2000)"

"Basic moral values must therefore first be internalised in the hearts and minds of its people before we can hope to enforce legislation reflecting these values. We cannot begin to observe man-made laws if we do not have any moral values to start off with in the first place. (18 May 2000)"

"Coups, murders, rapes, violence, brutality, burglaries, incest, rebellion, homosexuality and other forms of social ills and criminality are a product of a generational curse happening mostly in the indigenous Fijian community."

"I believe that this nation will be continuously cursed, until the leadership of this Government changes its accursed policy of Pacific Revised Apartheid and of not supporting Israel."

"I believe … that this Government practises a Pacific form of revised apartheid against the Indian community and should be ashamed of calling itself Christian."

"The Indian community in Fiji have been here over 120 to 130 years and would be the largest potential field of harvest to proselytize in, but we have not a show because of our examples and behaviours towards them. We need to show them the love of Christ first … before they can respond to Him."

"The growth of Christian denominational churches in Fiji is phenomenal for such a small country as Fiji. But that growth … is confined mainly to converts from one Christian denomination to another and not from non-Christian believers. This is not a paradox, it is a reality. We convert from left to right, but across the border, no."

"How can we win the other half of our nation to Christ, when we do not show them the practical love of Jesus Christ in our daily interaction with Him? How can we help, as leaders, to convert them to Christianity when we practise division and separateness?"

"Now to be endorsed unanimously to the Senate by the Great Council of Chiefs has been a crowning finale for me … This last act of endorsement and certification by the august body of Chiefs ratifies and stamps once and for all for me my Fijianness and dispels any questions of my right to be considered an indigene."

"The journey here was fraught with all kinds of opposition and venom. Through three courts, right upto the Court of Appeal to defend before three eminent judges my constitutional rights to be registered in the VKB; I struggled and I won."

"Today, as I stand here in this august House at 67 years of age, this last November 30th … culminates for me a journey and quest that has taken me most of my adult life, two decades in fact, to fulfil a vision and a dream that I, my mother and my maternal grandfather had regarding our entry into the Vola ni Kawa Bula (VKB) [1] and to be recognised finally by the Great Council of Chiefs."