Page 8 - IB JAN 2017

Cover Story
FijI TV discards CEO

Lamb

to the

slaughter

by Netani Rika Fijian Holdings Limited to understudy
Canadian Ken Clark and eased out of
WHEN Fiji Television Limited CEO, the company by sustained political and
Geoffrey Smith, finally steps down this military pressure.
month, he will put to rest one of the Nawari drew the ire of the interim
media industry’s worst-kept secrets. government when he continued to allow
Appointed to replace Tevita Gonelevu his news service to operate indepen-
in July 2015, Smith was ostensibly dently and openly challenge policies of Fiji Television chief executive officer Geoffrey Smith Photo:Supplied
tasked to oversee the gutting of the Bainimara’s administration. resigned in September 2008 to join the
company to a point where it would be- That began on December 6 when the University of the South Pacific as a re-
come no threat to the state-owned Fiji station did not produce its nightly news spected mentor to young entrepreneurs.
Broadcasting Corporation. bulletin – the first time since its incep- Long-time Fiji TV manager, Tarun
The post of CEO of one of Fiji’s most tion in 1991 – in protest against military Patel, took over the hot seat and came
promising companies was a poisoned censorship. under immediate pressure from the
chalice for Smith from the very begin- Smith was one of the journalists who board and the government to comply
ning. supported that move with Nawari stand- with their demands.
Ever since the company refused to ing firmly behind his news team. A no-nonsense operator with two
bend to the pressures of Fiji’s unelected Nightly calls and threats from mili- decades of industry experience and in-
interim administration under Rear- tary officers and Information Ministry built finance acumen, Patel strived to
Admiral Frank Bainimarama and later officials put an end to what could have maintain a balance between a free and
his Fiji First government, the knives been a brilliant career for a talented fair newsroom and a business under
have been out. finance person. unfair attack from the highest echelons
First to go was investment special- Less than two years after the military of society. But even he could not sustain
ist Mesake Nawari, recruited from coup of 2006, Nawari was gone, having the pressure from an unfriendly board

Bainimarama Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum Fareed ... interference Nawari ... defiant

8 Islands Business, January 2017