Parliamentarians need to be responsible and not misrepresent facts, the Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has told the Opposition, with regards to domestic air travel.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum opened the August session of Parliament yesterday with a strong rebuttal of comments made by National Federation Party leader, Biman Prasad, in the previous sitting of Parliament. Referring to Hansard reports, Mr Sayed-Khaiyum refuted claims that the Government was promoting Fiji Link over Northern Air on domestic air routes through preferential fuel surcharges.

“This is the type of misrepresentation, that I want to bring to the Honourable House and made by the Honourable Biman Prasad, and also want to correct the record because we need to be responsible, to make such statements, because the public are listening to it,” he said.

“If the public are thinking that the Government or the Air Transport Licencing Board, ALTB, is discriminating against one particular airline, it does not augur well for confidence.”

He pointed that the fuel surcharges were given to both domestic air travel providers.

“The reality is this, that the Fijian Government can confirm that the fuel surcharge is currently applied by both Fiji Link and Northern Air Limited which is operating air service in domestic schedule routes within  Fiji.

“The ATLB (Air Transport Licensing Board) is the authority that regulates air domestic services, licences, routes, air fares  and also approves  fuel surcharge for airlines operating in Fiji.

“Any requests for license, routes including fuel surcharge must be made through a formal application to the ATLB in order to be considered.”

He pointed out that Northern Air was already advertising its fares inclusive of fuel surcharges on its website, that proved his point of misrepresentation.

“I don’t have the authority to change the records, I just want to point out that what the Honourable Biman Prasad said, was factually incorrect,” said Mr Sayed-Khaiyum.

The debate became heated when Mr Prasad objected to Mr Sayed-Khaiyum’s accusation.

“Madam Speaker there were no misrepresentation of what I was saying. I was making a point that you got to have a policy a transparent open policy of whether fuel rebate is provided to subsidise. So the fact they considered applications doesn’t make the point I made a misrepresentation.”

Speaker of Parliament Dr Jiko Luveni asked that the Attorney-General’s comments be noted for the record.

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