A key corruption file involving former health minister Dr Neil Sharma lay dormant for 11 years before being handed to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in 2023, a former Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) investigator told the High Court on Wednesday. Alifereti Wakanivesi, testifying under oath before Justice Usaia Ratuvili, said the transfer followed a complaint to the CID lodged in 2022, and confirmed that no substantive action was taken on the matter from 2012 until the handover last year.
Wakanivesi told the court that investigations were effectively paused in 2012 after then-deputy commissioner George Langman directed staff to “put the case aside for the time being” on the instructions of former attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed‑Khaiyum. The State has since alleged Mr Sayed‑Khaiyum deliberately obstructed FICAC’s probe into Dr Sharma by ordering all investigations shelved. During cross-examination, however, Wakanivesi agreed investigators could not locate any written directive authorising a pause until the file was formally handed over when Rashmi Aslam became FICAC commissioner in 2023.
The trial, which resumed this week, centres on allegations that former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and Mr Sayed‑Khaiyum abused their official positions by improperly granting waivers to competitive tender processes for Ministry of Health contracts CTN 66/2011 and CTN 153/2011. Dr Sharma is specifically accused of failing to follow statutory tender requirements under the Procurement Regulation 2010 to favour the bidder Hospital Engineering & Consultancy Ltd, trading as Hospineer.
Defence counsel Devanesh Sharma pointed the court to Procurement Regulation 48(4), which permits the Minister of Finance to grant a tender waiver where it is impractical to follow full tender procedures or where there is an urgent infrastructure need. But Wakanivesi told the court the waiver application letters in this case did not invoke urgency or impracticality. Instead, he said, they emphasised cost savings, the decentralisation of health services and supplier-related issues as the basis for bypassing competitive tendering.
Wakanivesi also read into evidence a Ministry of Health letter revealing an internal split over preferred suppliers. One recommendation favoured a company familiar to officials, while another recommended Hospineer. The argument for Hospineer, the letter said, included breaking an apparent monopoly, lowering long-term costs and providing better local servicing — factors that, according to Wakanivesi, contrasted with the statutory criteria for an emergency or impracticability upon which a waiver should be based.
The prosecution is using the testimony to support its contention that the waivers lacked lawful justification and that the alleged influence of senior officials distorted the procurement process. The trial continued the following day as the court heard further evidence on the procurement decisions and the chain of instructions that left the FICAC inquiry stalled for more than a decade.
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