Press Releases

Elections Commission Meets NCBBF

The National Council for Building a Better Fiji (NCBBF) will hold its third meeting on Tuesday April, 15th 2008 at the Nasova Police Academy. The NCBBF will meet members of the Elections Commission who will brief the Council on the progress of the Commission’s work to date and its work programme for the conduct of elections by March, 2009.

NCBBF Membership Increases

The NCBBF will welcome five new members at its meeting on Tuesday. The total membership of the National Council has now risen from 36 to 41. The new members are:

1. Ratu Josefa Basulu	-	Chairman Lau Provincial Council
2. Mr Vinod Naidu	-	President, Andra Sangam of Fiji
3. Ms Asela Naisara	-	Vice President, National Council of Women
4. Ratu Meli Basu Vesikula	-	Chairperson, Initiatives of Change Fiji
5. Ratu Samuela Waqanaceva	-	Chairman, Serua Provincial Council

A representative of the Chinese Association of Fiji will attend the NCBBF meeting as an observer.

Total Membership of the NCBBF will be increased from 45 to 46 to enable the newly-elected Chairman of Serua Provincial Council to join the Council. The seats for the SDL Party, the National Federation Party and the Methodist Church and United General Party will remain vacant, awaiting a change of mind by these organizations to join the national consultative and reconciliation process of NCBBF to formulate the People’s Charter for Change, Peace and Progress.

Independent Monitoring Group of the NCBBF

The NCBBF will be meeting the Independent Monitoring Group (IMG) appointed by His Excellency the President Ratu Josefa Iloilo Uluivuda for the Charter Consultation Process. The members of the IMG are:

1. Mr Geert van der Linden	-	Chairman of the IMG
2. Rev. Carolyn Amy Chambers	-	Member
3. Mr Robin Nair	-	Member

The role of the IMG is to monitor and assess the work of the NCBBF, its Task Teams and Working Groups in terms of inclusiveness, consultative and participatory processes in engaging key stakeholders within the country in the formulation of the State of the Nation and Economy Report and the People’s Charter for Change, Peace and Progress. The IMG will report independently to the President on the robustness of the whole PCCPP undertaking.

Mr Geert van der Linden a Dutch national, was until recently a Senior Vice President of the Asian Development Bank. During 1995-97 he headed the ADB’s Office of Pacific Operations.

Rev. Amy Chambers is Principal of St. John the Baptist College and Vicar-General Anglican Diocese of Melanesia. She has had wide experience of work in the private sector in Fiji and in the Anglican Church.

Mr Robin Nair, born in Fiji, now an Australian citizen is a lawyer. He was first Secretary of the Fiji Mission to the United Nations, and in the Australian Foreign Service, he was Deputy Head of Mission at the Australian Embassy in Ankara, Turkey and later in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He helped set up the University of Fiji and is a Visiting Fellow at the Asia Pacific College of Diplomacy at the Australian National University and in 2006 developed a Diplomacy Skills Training Course for Pacific Islands countries working in Ministries of Foreign Affairs and other Ministries responsible for various international issues. Nineteen (19) Fiji public servants undertook this course in 2006.

Biographical Details of the IMG Members can be obtained from the TASS Secretariat.

View the Music Video Of the People's Charter