Damodar: NFP accounts issues embarrassing
She feels that NFP must learn from the 2018 election and move forward according to lessons learned.
Former vice president of the National Federation Party, Ridhi Damodar, has labelled the party’s issues with their financial accounts as “embarrassing”. Ms Damodar, who resigned from her position as party VP on Friday, was at the NFP Annual General Meeting on Saturday.
She had no reservations in airing her concerns when approached by the media.
Ms Damodar personally feels that the “fiasco regarding the party’s accounts” affects the party’s membership and support.
She said her resignation has a lot to do with the direction the party was taking and the party’s vision for the future looking at 2022.
“I contested in 2018 and after that the results at NFP was quite eyeopening I would say and it was a wakeup call for NFP as well because the expectation was much different than the result,” Ms Damodar said. She feels that NFP must learn from the 2018 election and move forward according to lessons learned.
She also added that the results of the political surveys and polls published by different organisations should be a wakeup call for NFP.
“I hope my resignation is a wakeup call for NFP.”
Party leader Biman Prasad strongly disagreed with Ms Damodar’s statement.
“I don’t agree with her. We are still verifying the accounts, all the NFP accounts have been audited, accepted and submitted to the Fijian Elections Office and now there are new issues through verifications. I don’t understand what she means by embarrassing,” he said.
Among the findings by the Registrar of Political Parties, Mohammed Saneem, were the inaccuracies in the party’s amount and sources of donation lists against the donations received by the party.
NFP has been given 21 days starting September 25 to rectify the disclosures and re- submit the same to Mr Saneem, failure of which may lead to the party’s suspension.