FijiFirst general secretary, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum is calling on political parties to adhere to the electoral laws when holding political rallies.

He made the call after lodging a series of complaints against some major political parties said to have breached the Electoral Act of 2014.

These political parties include the National Federation Party (NFP) and The People’s Alliance Party (PA).

Mr Sayed-Kaiyum said the first complaint made was regarding a video by NFP that showed Ahmed Bhamji making ‘false comments’ about the Tertiary Education Loans Scheme.

He said for Mr Bhamji to call the scheme a ‘lifetime of slavery’ was insulting for anyone who had undergone the scheme.

“He claimed that the quoted amount of $40,000 to $62,000 has been how much owed when indeed the amount of money owing through TELS depends on the individual course taken by the individual student. It could even be far less than that,” he said.

“The repayment commences when the student graduates and gainfully employed, you do not have to do any repayment until you are employed. If the person loses their job, the repayment stops.”

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said the guarantor would only pay if the owing student deliberately did not pay back its student loan.

“People can leave Fiji under various arrangements and arrangements have been made,” he said, adding that interest rates for the loan at $25,000 was actually zero percent.

The second complaint made was regarding the materials issued by PA which he said was not complying with the Act.

“A number of issues related to them publicizing or putting out flyers regarding the gathering of the leaders and various members of the party,” he said.

“It requires you, for example, political advertisements to say where it is printed, who printed the flyer, the address of the person authorising it, the address of the political party.

“These are flagrantly and consistently in breach of the rules.”

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