Minister for Agriculture, Doctor Mahendra Reddy has today said that he is not the minister who is alleged to have made comments on why a teacher and rice farmer was wearing a sulu vakataga.
Doctor Reddy says there are comments being made by some on the ground that he is the minister.
However he says he has never done that.
Doctor Reddy also revealed that he had met the teacher and rice farmer who has made the allegations in a talanoa session with the Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum over the weekend. He claims that the teacher had asked Doctor Reddy to promote him to headteacher in 2015.
Although concerns were raised in the talanoa session, the Minister for Agriculture says there are no major agriculture-related issues in the North and people are happy.
He says he will visit the area in the next few weeks.
Meanwhile the rice farmer of Dreketi had told Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum that a government minister had allegedly asked him whether something was wrong with him as he was wearing a sulu vakataga.
The farmer who is also a teacher in the North told Sayed-Khaiyum that the alleged incident happened after the last elections.
The man who is a Fijian of Indian descent says he then told the Minister that there is nothing wrong with wearing the sulu as the current government wants everyone to live as one.
He further told Sayed-Khaiyum that the Government Minister had also asked him whether the Fijian people will like him if he will wear a sulu.
The farmer says he is a man of two cultures and has been working with Fijians for long.
We have sent questions to Sayed-Khaiyum and asked what actions will be taken based on allegations made by the rice farmer.
He is yet to respond.
