INDUSTRY We are getting there as an organisation, says Clark on revamping of Fiji Sugar Corporation
LAUTOKA
Fiji Sugar Corporation chief executive officer, Graham Clark, knew when he took on the role three years ago, he was being faced with an industry that was close to rock bottom and riddled with pettiness, corruption and an oversized staff all around. In an interview, Mr Clarke said he had come into an industry which was still reeling from “hundreds of millions of dollars” that was lost in a project over 15 years earlier where all mills were to have been refurbished by a company, STM Projects from India. The project saw FSC take out an $86 million loan from India’s Exim Bank to fix the ailing sugar industry’s mills but produced a scandal that is still being felt today with repayments still being made. With the devastating impacts of Tropical Cyclone Winston in 2016, Penang Mill in Rakiraki had to stop its operation, taking the industry, which was once the backbone of Fiji’s economy, to its knees.
Mr Clark, originally from South Africa, said: “You know where I come from, they say you can eat an elephant slowly so this was an elephant problem and that’s for sure.
“We have tackled it in all different ways and we have tried to get rid of petty corruption around procurement and stores and have tightened controls.
“There was a lot of corruption around. Three years ago you could go to the lorry yard at Lautoka Mill and ask to buy a box of welding rods and you get one in no time because it came from our stores.
“We got rid of a whole lot of staff who were involved and cleaned up the stores procedures.”
Mr Clark said this then took him and his team back to look at the cause of the problem.
The Problem
“It went right back to investigating the cause of our problem which was the STM Projects scandal with FSC in 2005.”
A Fiji Sun report on this issue on 14 December 2011 said a consultant, Jeewan Jyoti (JJ) Bhagat, was part of a team which had made the initial presentation to the then Government in 2005. He resigned to form his own company, STM Projects.
The company then entered into a contract to supply machinery and parts to upgrade all four sugar mills.
Problems remained even after the upgrading but then problems began with parts not fitting the areas it was supposed to fit in, some arrived early in an expired state while others were simply unusable and a chimney sent blew up at the mill.
“Instead of fixing things they destroyed a lot of value in the mills. We did a calculation of how much damage, and it took some time because the board wanted it, and you are talking in the hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Mr Clark said now FSC had to find the money to repay Exim
Bank.
“So while we are finding the money our balance sheet is getting hammered to the tune of a couple of hundred millions. “So we have gone to the extent of doing all the forensic investigations on it and identified what went wrong and why it went wrong.”
Mr Clark said management had to help the present board understand what the history was and for management’s point of view they did not want to be caught in the same problem.
“We did not want to be held responsible for something which was not our doing.
“It had taken a lot of time to get to the root of all this and there was a lot of big structural issues around FSC’s business right down to the small petty corruption stuff.
“For me the big difference for me now is there is no place to hide now.
“You mess up or steal money we are going to catch you.”
Mr Clark said he had known the sugar industry in Fiji for a long time as he had come to Fiji 15 years ago.
“I started digging and, my goodness it was a challenge and I joined FSC knowing of the challenge and I wanted to help Fiji and the second thing was to deliver something and at this stage we have not delivered enough – on a scale 5.5 out of 10.
“It does not happen overnight so we have to keep working at it.”
Looking Ahead
“We are selling our sugar completely different now and we are getting quality price for it considering we have quality systems in place.
“People can be assured that what they eat is fit for human consumption.”
Mr Clark said there was also a lot that had gone into the environment which included the soot coming out from the mills.
He said it was not his style on putting the blame on people and he was more into fixing things and looking forward.
“As I have said I do not drive a car looking at the rear vision mirror.
“But you can’t dispute or refute the past but that is all behind us now and we will just have to get on with the job.
“You have to be tough and this includes terminating people and making positions redundant.
“It’s not that easy but if you ask me if we are getting there as an organisation, I would say yes,” Mr Clark said.