Q1. The NLTB
is the governing authority of all native lands,
80% of all land in Fiji. It was set up by
Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna to protect indigenous
land rights in the 1940's. Could you explain
to our readers what does the land mean for
an indigenous Fijian?
A1. The British put the land tenure system
in Fiji in place, when we were a colony back
in the 1800's. Fiji is unlike most countries
of the Pacific where the land was alienated
or sold off by the native owners. In New Zealand,
the Maoris are now trying to get their land
back. In Australia, the Aborigines are also
trying to get ownership of their land back.
In Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu
or New Caledonia, the land ownership does
not rest with the indigenous people. Fiji
had a Governor, Sir Arthur Gordon, and a Scotsman
who was familiar with the ownership of land
that existed in Fiji, as being similar to
the system in his native Scotland. Against
the tide of what the early settlers wanted
at that time, he stood for the protection
of the indigenous ownership of the land. Sir
Arthur Gordon put in place a system which
allowed Fijians to own the land, something
maintained up until now. That work was subsequently
carried on with Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna in the
early part of the century and he actually
went around and recorded individual ownership
of land right through out Fiji. The basis
of the ownership is that land is owned by
the mataqali (land owning unit). It is not
owned individually but communally.
Q2. … But this might present a problem
nowadays…
A2. In this modern day and age it might
present problems with developers wishing to
undertake development, but we have a system
in place to cater for this. The current system
allows investors to come in and use the land.
There three categories of land that we have:
Freehold Land, which has been sold off and
for which there are titles available. I actually
own a freehold property here in Suva where
my house is and I can sell it to who ever
I want; State Land, or Crown Land, which are
lands owned by the government, if you want
to acquire this land there would be issued
a lease by the government. This building is
sitting on Crown Land; Native Land, about
90% of the land in our 300 islands of Fiji
out of a total land area of 18,500 squares
kilometres.
Q3. When we talk about Native Land, how
is this land leased to investors when they
come in?
A3. When somebody wants to come in and
set up a business that involves land the first
thing they should do is to get in touch with
the Native
Lands Trust Board. Depending on the type
of project we can advise them on what land
will be suitable for their purposes or even
helping them to contact landowners and facilitate
the negotiations. Some people do it the other
way around, they speak to the landowners,
which is okay, but ultimately the power or
the trusteeship role rests with the Native
Lands Trust Board. Although the individual
tribes own the land, the Native Lands Trust
Board was set up to be a trustee for the landowners.
If you want to set up a hotel, you identify
a piece of land and speak to the landowners,
the landowners by themselves do not have the
power to lease land directly to you, they
have to come through the Native Lands Trust
Board and there are reasons for this. The
basic one is that land is not individually
owned, therefore you run the risk of not knowing
who the owners are because there could be
20 to 50 members of the tribe, who are all
owners. You can be speaking to a person who
says this is my land and he or she could be
a part owner only. The right to lease the
land rests with the Native Lands Trust Board.
Q4. Mr Bakani, Fiji is facing the need
to increase investments from 11% to 25%
of GDP. There are a few key institutions
in the country with a crucial role to play
in the near future to get such an ambitious
objective. How would you define the responsibility
of the NLTB?
A4. The main responsibility that we have
is making ourselves customer friendly to the
needs and requirements of the investors that
want to come to Fiji. We want to make ourselves
available so that people do not come and speak
to many different people and inevitably get
confused. We are here to be the one stop shop
for people who want to make contact with the
landowners or set up a business on Native
Land. I should add that this is not something
we are doing for the first time. The majority
of the hotels that are in the West are on
Native Land. The Sheraton, in Denarau Island,
or the Hilton and the Four Seasons that are
about to come up will be built on Native Land.
At the NLTB, we work closely with the FTIB,
the institution that facilitates investment
project. Most of the major projects are on
Native Land so the investors coming in will
need to be meeting with the native owners
and the Native Lands Trust Board. The main
requirement before we issue a lease is that
we see that more than 51% of the landowners
agree.
Q5. The land issue has been one of the
main obstacles for investment in Fiji. Investment
projects that have been sealed have found
later on land or compensation claims. You
have been recently appointed and you are now
leading a new management team with high expectations.
What are the changes in the strategy towards
increasing FDI into Fiji?
A5. I do not have a degree in land management,
my background has been business. The prior
management team here came from land management
systems and maybe considered "closed"
in their outlook. The biggest challenge for
me is trying to commercialise this organisation.
Make people look even at land as an economic
tool, an asset that can generate more for
the landowners rather than looking at it from
a traditional perspective. Gradually, we are
trying to infiltrate the thinking that land
is an asset that can be used to uplift the
standards of living, to get rid of the levels
of poverty and to improve the qualities of
life of the people. I am having a good look
at the structure of the organisation, so that
it is structured in a way that promotes service
to customers. We are opening up a new office
in Nadi as at the moment, our office in Lautoka
services the whole of the Western Division.
Nadi has a big Tourism potential as all there
are a lot of beaches there. We are bringing
our office where it will better serve our
people. We are increasing workforce and staff
training so that people are more customers
oriented. We are sending students to the University
as a long-term investment where we will see
the results after three to five years. We
have put in place a Corporate plan for two
years, something unknown in this organisation
as it operates like a government department
previously. We are also doing a job evaluation
exercise so that we make sure that our staff
is motivated. This is something we need to
do in the service industry that we are in.
Our staff are told that they are the most
important asset we have. We are trying internally
to get the system right within the organisation
and then move out so that we are able to meet
the requirements of the people coming in from
outside to invest. The image that we are trying
to portray is that of enhancing the development
of this country.
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Q6. Things
are being done and improving but in the past
some mismanagement happened and this institution
earned quite a bad reputation. In order to
restore the image, what message would you
like to give to the international business
community concerning the new NLTB that you
are building ?
A6. I would like to tell them that the
new team in NLTB came here with a business
background and we understand the needs of
the business community. In one of my previous
roles, I was deputy-managing director of a
Malaysian company and I travelled frequently
to Kuala Lumpur to attend meetings. That company
is still here and they own, among other things
the largest supermarket chain of Morris Hedstroms
and the Carpenters Groups. So I understand
the requirements of the international business
community. We would like to tell them that
whoever is out there who wants to do business
in Fiji, as far as the land requirements are
concerned, we understand what your requirements
are. There is still a lot of room for improvement
as you cannot turn an organisation around
within six months but definitely we are putting
in place strategies to help us to be more
commercial in outlook and customer oriented.
Q7. In the National Budget there is a
clear and strong indication of this government
to save the sugar industry. What kind of
favourable lease policies do you want to
come up with to help salvage the sugar industry
and how soon will they be operating ?
A7. I am on the steering committee for
the sugar restructuring process and I have
said publicly before that we are very supportive
of any attempts to restructure the sugar industry.
It is one of the most important industries
that we have. It has had its bad days but
I strongly feel that we are one of the major
stakeholders in the sugar industry, after
all we own majority of the land. The restructure
plans aim to set up four separate stand-alone
companies where there are four mills now.
Those companies are going to be owned by the
growers, landowners and employees. At the
moment there are individual leases to all
the farmers and there are over 10,000 sugar
cane farmers in this country. The proposal
that we are currently talking about for the
issue of one master lease. All the land that
is supplying cane to this mill will issue
one master lease that will go to the stand-alone
company.
Q8. Why do you think that will salvage
the sugar industry ?
A8. There is inherent friction and conflict
between the landowner and the tenant farmer
in the present set-up. In theory the restructure
will take that confrontation point out because
now the individual farmer does not need to
face the landowner or the NLTB at that level.
We are going to issue a master lease to the
company, who will then sublease the land to
the individual farmers. In that stand-alone
company the farmer himself is a shareholder,
the landowner is a shareholder, the employees
are shareholders so we should present a unified
commercial approach. I know there will be
difficulties in convincing everyone about
the merits of this scheme but from the landowners
point of view I have given my blessings to
the committee that we are all behind it. We
have only had three meetings and we are already
preparing the documents for the companies.
So we are moving ahead of the schedule that
we set ourselves. This restructure will bring
commercialisation to the whole industry and
de-politicisation of the sugar sector. Once
you have the industry running on a commercial
basis everyone will get the benefits rather
than all the bickering that takes place now.
It will be a major task.
Q9. What is the potential of Fiji to
become the economic hub of the Pacific?
A9. I had heard of plans to make Fiji
the Singapore of the Pacific even before 1987.
Then the coups of 1987 happened and that all
went down. Now we have started coming up again
after 2000 but what gives me hope is the current
leadership that we have. The leadership in
the country right now understands the realities
of business. One of the best example is the
Prime Minister. We have had the problem with
the sugar industry for the last 20 years and
he is the one who has decided to take the
problem by the horn. He has put his political
career on the line as previous governments
have tended to shy away from it due to possible
political repercussions.
Q10. What is the international community
going to see in Fiji in the near future concerning
national reconciliation?
A10. There used to be slogan that we used
to promote Fiji: "Fiji, the way the world
should be". This is what we show the
visitors when they come here. Negative things
like the coups do not mean that Fijians are
against Indians or Indians against Fijians.
At the NLTB, we represent the landowners who
are from one ethnic group, while the tenants
are members of the other ethnic group. We
are promoting reconciliation between the two
races. I appeared in a Hindi radio talk show
to answer questions from the farmers ringing
in and laid to rest some of the anxieties
that they had. We are working at explaining
to them the leasing arrangements about the
land, to tell them that we support the sugar
cane restructure and also to take the opportunity
to explain to them some of the characteristics
of Fijians to help them relate better to their
landowners.
Q11. What do you think Fiji would like
to communicate to its Commonwealth counterparts
?
A11. We have different styles of living.
We have different religions. But a lot of
reconciliation will come from understanding.
That is the sort of message that we are trying
to relay. Unfortunately, what gets highlighted
is more negative news than positive. If we
have a small incident then it is broadcast
all over the world. Everyday there are incidents
going on but if we have close cooperation,
people helping each other, that does not get
into the media.
Q12. It is always good to know who is
behind an organisation. Could you explain
to us more about your background ?
A12. I have a degree in economics and
have attended numerous training programs locally
and overseas including Wharton University
in the U.S. I started with the Fiji Development
Bank. From the Fiji Development Bank, I moved
onto the National Bank of Fiji. From there
I moved unto the Carpenters Group to become
Deputy Managing Director, that was 5 years
up until 1998. Then I did a bit of private
work until I was accepted to take on this
assignment. I have also served in government
owned institutions as a board member of Telecom
Fiji and Rewa Dairy. I was the chairman of
the Pacific Fishing Company, a tuna processing/canning
business. I was involved in finalising a deal
with an American company, Bumble Bee, which
is now a partner. Another of my involvement
was as chairman of Strategic Air Services
Ltd (SASL), a company that provides air traffic
control to Airports Fiji Limited.
A13. On a personal level, what would
like our readers to know ?
Q13. I come from a strong Christian family
background. I am a family man with five children.
My wife stays at home and I do not like going
out. I have close friends who I socialise
with regularly. I have very strong family
ties and it is something I value and treasure.
Winne cannot be held responsible for
unedited transcription.
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V.I.P. INTERVIEWS
