More than 36,000 Energy Fiji customers acquired $7.1m non-voting shares: A-G
To date 36,764 Energy Fiji Limited customers have acquired $7.1 million non-voting shares and a balance of $17m shares are held in trust by the Central Share Registry Limited.
This was highlighted by the Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum during his ministerial statement in Parliament yesterday.
Therefore, Fijians can still acquire nonvoting shares.
There are a total $500m shares in EFL, $475m ordinary shares or 95 per cent of the company and $25m non-voting shares or five per cent of the company.
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said the government had offered non-voting shares for free to domestic account holders of EFL who are Fijian citizens and who are residing in Fiji. These domestic customers who receive a subsidy under the Electricity Subsidy Scheme will be offered a parcel of 250
shares, while non-subsidised customers will be offered one parcel of 150 shares. He also highlighted the challenges faced by EFL in its divestment process.
He said the divestment process was not a simple one as several important regularity changes needed to be made and other considerations needed to be taken into account in preparing the business for the divestment.
“Given the time taken to divest EFL, we can certainly say that this was not a desperate move to raise funds by the government as claimed by many and reported in the The Fiji Times.
“We took our time in scoping the market and carefully selecting the right investor. If it was a rushed sale or desperate move, the divestment of EFL would have actually been concluded way back in 2016 or even last year or the year before that.”