Konisi Yabaki

Konisi Tabu Yabaki is a Fijian politician from the southern island of Kadavu. He served in the Cabinet from 2000 to 2006, but lost his portfolios as Minister for Fisheries and Forests after the parliamentary election of 6-13 May 2006. He was subsequently appointed Chairman of the parliamentary committee on Social Services.

Political career

Yabaki won the Lomaivuna Namosi Kadavu Open Constituency for the Fijian Political Party (SVT) at the 1999 election. He was appointed Minister for Tourism and Transport in the interim government that was formed in July 2000 the wake of the failed Fiji coup of 2000, which deposed the elected government of Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry before being quashed by the Military. In the election held to restore democracy in September 2001, he won the Kadavu Fijian Communal Constituency for the United Fiji Party (SDL), defeating James Ah Koy, who had held the seat for many years, and was subsequently appointed Minister for Forests and Fisheries.

Controversies

Late in November 2005, it was revealed that in 1999, Yabaki had been dismissed from the board of Fiji Pine Limited for incompetence, along with Ratu Jone Kubuabola, who is now Fiji's Minister for Finance, and Navitalai Naisoro, who is now Chairman of the FPL. The revelation, made by Militoni Leweniqila, who was Minister for Forests at the time, prompted National Alliance Party leader Ratu Epeli Ganilau to call on all three to resign from the offices they presently hold.

On 1 January 2006, the Fiji Sun quoted Josaia Waqabaca, a former executive member of the extremist Nationalist Vanua Tako Lavo Party who claims to have been a party to the planning of the Fiji coup of 2000, as implicating Yabaki in a plot to bomb Nadi International Airport and strategic points in Suva in 1999. Yabaki told the Sun that while he knew and often ate with Waqabaca and economist Navitalai Naisoro (whom Waqabaca also implicated), he was neither an accomplice nor an accessory to the plot. The bombing had never been discussed, he said. At a meeting with Waqabaca, Naisoro, and Maciu Navakasuasua (who later served a prison sentence for coup-related offences), Yabaki had indeed criticized the then-government of Mahendra Chaudhry, but had not discussed any illegal moves against the government.

Navakasuasua supported Waqabaca's allegations against Yabaki. Yabaki, he said, was a professional who took care not to leave any incriminating evidence of his own role. In a number of meetings, he said, he and Waqabaca had been asked to step aside while Naisoro conferred with Yabaki.

In a further statement on 5 January, Yabaki condemned the Fiji Sun for reporting Navakasuasua's allegations against him. "The Sun newspaper should ... refrain from being the outlet in which individuals such as Navakasuasua churn out their wild allegations and speculations, without any concrete basis and which are defamatory in nature," he declared. He called Navakasuasua "a very idle person" who was making unfounded statements from the safety of a foreign country, against persons who have stayed in Fiji to help it recover.

Navakasuasua told the "Sun" on 12 January that he was disappointed that Yabaki, along with two others accused, had denied knowing him. He claimed to have eaten at Naisoro's residence in 1999; Yabaki was one of the guests, he claimed. One guest had demonstrated a petrol bomb, and Yabaki had observed the explosion, Navakasuasua asserted. He insisted that his allegations against Yabaki were true.