Frank’s reaction to Fiji flood not soo responsive like in 2009
During the January 2009 flood, tyrant Frank Bainimarama was soo eager to show Fiji Islanders and the world just how committed he was to help the flood-stricken families.
And he did a good job of it by entering the danger zone at the height of the flooding and even assisted in the evacuation process.
His good samaritan pictures were plastered on his propaganda Fiji Sun newspaper and Fiji government website.
He even used the flooding as an excuse not to attend the Pacific Forum Leaders meeting at PNG but instead, he sent his side-kick Aiyaz Khaiyum who was later dressed down and put in his right place by those democratically elected Pacific leaders.
Frank’s attitude towards the recent Fiji flooding have somewhat changed.
He was not seen wading through the flooded towns in the Western side of Fiji, nor was his Qorvis Communications spin doctors or his other mouth-piece Sharon Smith-Jones tweeting or churning out pictures of a hands-on dictator reaching out to the flood-stricken locals.
That Qorvis woman, Tina Jeon ditched her luxurious tweeting boat ride with the dictator.
Accompanying the dictator through muddy waters is not her thing, she only wants the touristy type of boat ride and getting her hands and feet dirty with flood debris is not part of their US$40,000 per month PR terms of engagement.
They all remained silent during the deluge.
What happpened cranky Frankie?
Well, it’s not too hard to speculate on the main reason behind his slow reaction.
For starters, he as Fiji’s Minister for money is now scratching his head on how and where he will find the extra money required to rehabilitate affected people and areas in a flood that took everyone by surprise causing damages that is more severe than recent ones.
His free for all spending habits have emptied the public kitty long time ago and he has been borrowing heavily to fund his regime’s activities.
He borrowed FJ$500 million in bonds alone last year and is again borrowing $195million local bonds as we blog.
Actual total borrowings todate remain hazzy due to his refusal to publicise the Auditor General’s report and other unreported loans he’s been getting from China.
His 2012 budget is an unsustainable one with major revenue centers like direct taxes and indirect taxes on VAT and Customs expected to take a nose dive this year with dimishing activities in the private sector due to his incoherent policies and corrupt, non-transparent processes, punctuated by a compromised judiciary heavily influenced by the whims of Frank, Aiyaz (and Nazhat).
Business people feel they’ve been ostracised by his overly socialistic budget aimed at killing the hen that lays the golden eggs, and they are getting tired of working the engine room for the unappreciative megalomaniac dictator and his deceitful right hand man, Aiyaz Khaiyum.
Most of them have either packed up and left to invest elsewhere or have simply down-sized their unprofitable Fiji operations.
Yesterday, Frank launched his unappealing flood appeal, well after his “unco-operative enemies” (as he like to call them) Australia and NZ gave their pledge to donate $1million on Australia Day.
Are we to expect another tea party fund-raising appeal at his office soon like in 2009? Or are we to expect a blue-label whisky party?
tsk..tsk…tsk…
