Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says more civil servants are expected to be charged by the Fiji Independent Commission against Corruption for corruption and abuse of office.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum, who is also the Minister for Economy, made the revelation during the Fiji Chamber of Commerce and Industry, West Business Forum at Fiji National University lecture theatre in Nadi yesterday.

He said there were “a lot of sharks’’ coming around trying to take advantage of the situations.

He said people had raised issues about the processes in some of the Government departments and therefore we needed to change the mindsets.

He said the Minister for Lands had identified in the Lautoka office a number of blockages.

There might be some people who could face charges by FICAC in the next few months.

“You must have seen the Fiji Sun newspaper where it had on its front page personnel of LTA being charged by FICAC,” he said.

He said we needed to make sure that we  were continuously focussed and ensure that the rules were followed.

“We have to make sure that everybody gets treated equally, and I have to say that some local business people are the ones that are the main detractors from the process,” he said.

He reminded all stakeholders that there were no shortcuts.

He said there should be a level playing field and everyone should be treated equally.

“And there are of course areas where we can improve ourselves from the legal perspective too,” he said.

There had been, of course, a lot of wheeling and dealing in the issue of Tax avoidance.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said there were a lot of dealings done under the table with a lot of cash transactions.

But he said more experts were being brought from overseas to provide analysis and capture that segment of the tax regime that is currently not being captured.

Edited by: FARZANA NISHA

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