- Joketani Cokanasiga
Joketani Cokanasiga is a former
Fiji an politician, who served as Minister for Public Works and Energy in the interim Cabinet formed byLaisenia Qarase in the wake of theFiji coup of 2000 . He held office till an elected government took power inSeptember 2001 .In early 2006, Cokanasiga found himself at the centre of an inquiry into alleged corruption in an agricultural
affirmative action scheme during his time as a Minister. TheFiji Sun reported on20 January that a letter to the Prime Minister and signed by Cokanasiga had condemned a Finance Ministry decision to suspend the program while anaudit was in progress, describing the suspension as "political suicide." The letter, dated8 August 2001 , was marked "Confidential." The audit found a discrepancy of F$16 million in the accounts.The "Sun" reported that Prime Minister Qarase had admitted the previous night that he had received the letter, but denied acting on it. "The 2001 general election was close by and the audit found that millions of dollars had been misused," he was quoted as saying.
The
Fiji Village news service announced on21 March 2006 that the SDL had decided not to renominate Cokanasiga for the general election, which was duly held on 6-13 May . He was succeeded as Member for the Serua Fijian Communal Constituency byPio Tabaiwalu .Cokanasiga is originally from
Serua . He is a former civil servant who also worked as a hotelier before reverting to farming.On
15 August 2007 , Cokanisiga accepted the invitation to be interim Minister for Fisheries and Forest in the Government led byFrank Bainimarama . [cite news| title=Former SDL minister to join Bainimarama's Cabinet|url=http://www.fijilive.com/news/show/news/2007/08/15/niuz5.html|date =15 August 2007 |Publisher=Fijilive |accessdate=2007-08-15]References
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