It was a glorious occasion for the employees of Fiji Ports Terminal Limited as they gathered for the moment they had all been waiting for. Their pay bonus announcement.

At least $221,000 will be distributed amongst around 300 staff members of Fiji Ports Terminal as their bonuses.

This include 83 permanent staff members and 215 casuals.

Fiji Ports Terminal chairman, Hasmukh Patel, said this was the second time for the staff members to receive bonuses since their new partnership with Sir Lankan company Aitken Spence.

“This joint venture if I may call it has been in operation for just over two years now,” he said.

“I felt very proud as part of the board to announce that we are in a position once again to declare bonus for all our employees.

“For the first time last year we declared bonus for all our employees and it gives me great pleasure to once again say that we are in a position to once again give bonus to all our 300 employees.”

 Importance of all

The Acting Prime Minister and Attorney-General and Minister for Public Enterprises, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, acknowledged every staff member for their contribution towards the entity’s success.

“You need to understand what we are all doing individually as citizens of Fiji and how your contribution, productivity, can make everything better for us and grow the economy,” he said.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum informed the staff members Government was currently negotiating partial divestment of its shares in Fiji Ports Corporation.

“Hopefully we will reach an agreement very soon. With that relationship being developed, we will also get at least a couple of new partners with Fiji Ports Corporation which will mean more capital injection into the company.”

Long-term goal

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said capital injection would mean more money being put into the company to get better equipment, better facilities, better working environment for all the staff involved.

“But our long-term goal is also to ensure to make Fiji a premier destination as a port destination,” he said.

“We need much better and modern facilities and new port facility.

“As part of the divestment of the shares in Fiji Ports Corporation one of the conditions was we have a new port development which will be economically-sustainable.

“It is always very good – a lot of people can come and offer lots of money and say we will give you cheap loan and you can build a new port, but we have to pay it back at some stage.

“So we have to ensure that any new development that is done, it is done in a sustainable basis.

“So we are developing an entirely new industry with the view that Fiji does economically-well,” he said.

“When we do economically-well, we are then able to provide better facilities.”

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