Three years ago a government stooge had controlled Fiji Broadcasting Corporation and everything that went through it's newsroom.
Acting Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Professor Biman Prasad highlighted this during the Pacific Media Partnership Conference 2025.
Professor Prasad says FBC now regularly runs news that is critical of the government.
The Acting Prime Minister says who can forget the days when the former Fiji Sun editors waited every afternoon to be told by the Government what the following day’s headlines would be.
He says the price for their subservience was a multi-million dollar exclusive advertising contract where all the government onwed business and statutory bodies were dictated to by the previous Government.
He says those days are over, and this government will not interfere with FBC’s independence.
Professor Prasad says last week the Fiji Times was finally freed from the burden of an appeal against its acquittal for sedition in 2018.
He further says their editor, Fred Wesley described it last week, that prosecution in 2017 was an act of vengeance by the Bainimarama government against one of the last independent media voices to survive under their rule. The Acting Prime Minister says that they as a government are open to scrutiny, even as some of them face internal and external challenges.
Professor Prasad says controversies are currently swelling over the offices of the Director of Public Prosecutions and FICAC and he is personally accused of wrongdoing in the FICAC saga.
He says in the controversy of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the panel of judges issued a ruling clearing him of wrongdoing.
He further says in the FICAC controversy, a Supreme Court judge is now inquiring into it and will issue a public report.
Professor Prasad says these inquiries take place because of an independent judiciary.
The Acting Prime Minister asks who can imagine this occurring under the previous government.
Professor Prasad adds by suppressing the media, the previous government was deliberately blocking progress and development in a sustained way.
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