Fiji's e-ticketing system deemed to fail

'Invalid system error' when this passenger tried to click on

The Fiji First government's e-ticketing system for buses launched three days ago and it has been nothing but chaos.

E-ticketing machines where people are supposed to click on before boarding their bus have been broken saying 'invalid system setting'.

Passengers and children haven't been picked up by drivers especially along the Suva-Nausori corridor.

Some passengers say they are being wrongly charged and their bus fares have actually gone up.

Yesterday Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum held a press conference to address the public backlash and confirmed 100 complaints had been received by the LTA.

However he said that the complaints were minor, considering the number of e-cards distributed, which is about 600,000.  

Pro-government media like the Fiji Sun have called the e-ticketing system a historic moment and the beginning of another milestone.

Is it an increase in bus fares?

According to a Fiji Sun editorial "it will take time for people to adapt to this new change but overall this e-ticketing system  is a step-forward for Fijians one that we will need to get used to and prove to the world that yes, Fiji will move with modern technologies, and time".

They have conveniently forgotten that Fiji is a third world country, it is not on the same level as most other countries in the world that have e-ticketing in terms of many reasons - population, infrastructure, technology, education and salaries.

If the government wants Fiji to be there at the top of the list with other countries there are a thousand other services to fix before introducing an expensive e-ticketing system that the people of Fiji are not ready for.

Fiji is now so modern with this e-ticketing system yet the country is still experiencing a lack of basic services like water and power cuts, bad roads and a health system to die for - literally.  

'Adultery email' shows SODELPA weaknesses

Is SODELPA going to stuff it up for the 2018 elections?
Instead of getting its act together on policies that will win them votes next year, the party hierarchy is caught up in email exposures that reveal poor strategy and solidarity in party ranks.
This week's clanger by Saniana Radrodro is not only an example of the shabby communications she provided for SODELPA in 2014, but the fact that SODELPA stills doesn't know how to play to win.
As losers in an election structured to favour military, SODELPA got 15 out of 50 seats and nearly 30 per cent of the vote, a good base to build on.
But a year out from the country going to the polls again, emails calling out each other's adulterous behaviour is exactly the crap that affects the votes of ordinary Fijians.
People in SODELPA, from the likes of Sainiana Radroro to party leader Sitiveni Rabuka himself, need to get it together quickly if it's going to topple the military government of FB.
Sainiana Radroro has explained herself but it's no wonder the party's vulnerable with the kind of correspondence she's putting out for anyone to leak.
Does SODELPA want to win the 2018 elections or not?



Saniana Radroro's email about Rabuka's call for a national poll on adultery
wrote:
Ni Yadra na veiwekani. I'm optimistic we are all in good health this

Rein it in, please!

morning.
I communicate to register my concern and personal disappointment over recent pronouncements by the Party Leader MG Sitiveni Rabuka in the news media specifically the Fiji Times.
I woke up yesterday to phone calls from people over what Mr Rabuka had stated in response to escalating crime rates in Fiji that appeared as front page on this last Tuesday morning the 28th of August, 2017.
In his response as per attached pictures of his statement, the Party leader is calling for a public poll to be conducted to determine how many leaders are engaging in adulterous affairs.
How many are divorcees and etc. the alleged quote by him is as follows:
"It would be very interesting to do a poll at our national leadership level to gauge how many leaders hold moral views.
How many are in adulterous relationships or are divorcees, how many have caused deaths with or without malice, and how many

Pull it together, please!

condone these erosions of moral values ".
This to me shows a man that views himself as above others and one that wants to project he is above reproach.
I am sad. Without going into a personal attack on the Party Leader, let me just say that when his name was being mooted for party leader, some of our leaders asked whether he would be good.
In response, I had personally shared that I was only concerned of his apparent bitterness which shines through emails for example that he sends to the public likewise his public pronouncements that he makes referring to what his own daughter had to suffer. In the process he walks over people like me.
Now in this latest statement he makes, I wonder whether we have the right leader.
After all I want to ask him to tell us who is he referring to in his statement because I can easily pick out all of us who are divorcees in this party and now live happy lives. Also I know of many whose adulterous lives were public, and know likewise that this party has people who had illegitimate children before marriages and some during Marriage, but it's not in our place to judge them or anyone for that matter.
The inference I get from the Party Leader's statement is that it's okay to have affairs as many as you can have and even have children in the process whilst you are married but as long as you stay married. As a female the statement for me sends scary messages. As a feminist as well, I am disappointed to say the least.
I ask that all decent people in this party please encourage Mr Rabuka to reexamine his intentions for joining Sodelpa. Because this party after all was established to assist indigenous Fijians progress, not to be walked over by the very person who has recently joined the party to lead it.
In another statement he also said which is on video that I captured at the recent LeadersForum, that he is someone that doesn't like engaging in protests.
And yet we were there to gather signatures for a petition for free and fair elections which itself is forms of passive resistance or protest so to speak.
I strongly encourage that Mr Rabuka be trained on public engagements and pronouncements. Like I've shared he shows signs of a disturbed and psychologically damaged person. I hope this bitterness which perhaps has been mounting due to what he feels was done to him by we the indigenous people in 1999 resulting in his defeat at the polls, can be flushed out of his system. I am worried that He continues to display for example the character of someone willing to destroy people in his self righteous retribution process. As long as he is not out to avenge those that have wronged him in his view.
In another example, In a recent media release last year he had also claimed publicly that his own people from SVT and his traditional leader had been responsible in stabbing him in the back during SVT days and they were engaged in ousting him from the position of Chairman ofCakaudrove Provincial Council.
These public pronouncements make me really question his ability to remove his personal bitterness from his leadership.
I leave these here and seek your understanding to help us help him help Fiji.
Is he the right leader given to us by our maker or was it manipulated for him to assume the position? Such things will reflect on his performance. And I hope he does not become a liability for the party and for all freedom lovers in Fiji. We want to win next year's elections and we need a leader that helps us be victorious.
You will note his statements of recent are now the subject of jokes on social media by politicians from other parties. That's sad and this definitely will cost us as a party. I hope we don't get to not only lose next year but in fact win less seats than in 2014.
Vinaka Saka and may good sense prevail today. God bless always.
Sai.

Judge violates the ethics of justice while judiciary hierarchy look on

Remember Kamal Kumar? 

He was the judge who famously ruled that the Electoral Commission in August 2014 was wrong to disqualify Parveen Kumar Bala as a candidate from the 2014 General Elections because the announcement was made beyond time. 

One judge doing the right thing: Who is it?

In the same ruling he also said the Supervisor of Elections was 'right' to disregard the ruling, allowing Bala to contest the elections and go on to become a senior minister in Frank Bainimarama's Fiji First Government.

Bala was at the time facing a charge of causing the death of a man in Lautoka in November 2013 due to dangerous driving, while an Administrator of the Lautoka City as well as Ba Town Councils. 

Not surprisingly, when he became a Minister, Bala was acquitted because the magistrate presiding over the trial also ruled the Prosecution could not prove Bala was  the driver of the car.  The magistrate decided Bala's police statement, in which he stated he was driving, was obtained through improper procedures. 

Again not surprisingly, the Office of Director of Public Prosecutions, headed by another regime lackey, Christopher Pryde, decided  not to appeal the ruling. 

Coming back to Kamal Kumar - isn't he now the judge hearing the case instigated by Bala through his cronies (ex-policeman Narsa Reddy and failed school teacher Govind Padiyachi) against TISI Sangam .... after Bala and others were suspended for disrupting a Sangam meeting and holding a rival Sangam AGM in May last year?

Why isn't Kamal Kumar recusing himself or stepping down from presiding over the case, despite the clear conflict of interest?

He knows Bala, yet shamelessly continues to preside over the case despite the Court of Appeal ruling in November last year that his decision to rule against the Electoral Commission's decision to disqualify Bala from the 2014 elections, was wrong.