BONUS DAY:
Acting Prime Minister and Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum and Fiji Pine Group executive chairman Faiz Khan at Drasa, Lautoka, with staff members of Fiji Pine Limited and their families amidst a $3000 bonus payout.
Fiji Pine and Tropik Wood have been a shining star in the Fijian economy, for the past five years. This statement was made by the Acting Prime Minister and Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum during the record bonus payout of $1.3 million announcement to 594 employees of the Pine Group of Companies at Tropik Woods Complex at Drasa in Lautoka yesterday.
Each employee will take home $3000 for Christmas from the bonus which includes their Fiji National Provident Fund Contribution from the company. The 594 employees represent Tropik Wood Industries (Lautoka) 275, Fiji Forest (Malau) 231, Fiji Pine Limited 64 and Tropik Wood Products in Bua 24.
The payout this year was far more compared to the $1000 bonus payout last year.
“I cannot over emphasis the fact that under his (Faiz Khan Executive Chairman Pine Group of Companies) leadership, the company has made phenomenal success,” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said.
“It cannot be achieved without everybody coming together.
“In any organisation you need a good leader and a good leader is someone who is able to harness the different energies from around him or her.” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said while Mr Khan could not work some of the jobs in the complex at Drasa, he made sure all the energies were harnessed together to get the best result.
He asked from five years ago and before that, if the company had the same level, if not more, access to funds, the same amount of land for planting and harvesting, why could they not achieve what had been achieved yesterday. “Why didn’t they pay the landowners $7 million and bonus payouts to staff ?” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said the reason was that they did not have the right people in the right job. “People, including board members and leaders were chosen because of ethnicity.
“Because of ethnicity we are so obsessed with ethnicity.
“As a result our country suffered along with young people from the 1970s to 2000.
“Now when we have the right people making the right decisions, everybody benefits.
“The landowners are getting much higher poundage, much high stumpage, much higher lease payments, a lot more leases have been renewed, more bonuses paid out.”
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said the $3000 bonus payout to the workers was a direct result of teamwork and understanding.
He referred to Opposition member Niko Nawaikula’s statement in Parliament last week when he said landowners were being paid scrap when Minister for Forest Osea Naiqamu was praising the performance of the Pine Group of Companies.
“It’s a time for reflection. You need to see where you are and what heights you can achieve.”
He thanked all workers and the team work that has been achieved. “The operating profits that Fiji Pine and Tropik are headed for in 2018 now rank our financial performance amongst the very top companies in Fiji,” Mr Khan said.
“2018 has also been a year of fake news over social media, and Fiji Pine was not spared from it.”
“In April this year when we announced the record breaking $7 million bonus payout to our landowners, a remarkable achievement for Fiji Pine, social media was questioning how Fiji Pine could pay such a large sum to our landowners, incorrectly claiming that our accounts were not audited for over a decade.
“When we clarified that Fiji Pine’s books were externally audited every year, we were told that Fiji Pine was feeding scraps to its landowners. “Everyone knows that until 2013 our landowner shareholders did not receive a single cent of promised returns or bonus payouts. “Within five years we, you, have taken this payout from $0 to $7 million paid in one year.
“We invite people to criticise our performance.
“But when people through fake news try to undermine the transformation that you have brought about in the pine industry, the distinction between your star performance and mediocrity is lost. “When that distinction is lost it becomes easier for companies to perform poorly whilst saying that they are doing well because it goes unnoticed. “That is fundamentally wrong because if we cannot distinguish between fact and fiction we no longer aspire to be great, as a nation.” Tropik Wood’s oldest employee, Kolinio Nasilokia, who retires on December 13 said when he joined the company in 1989 as a forklift boy his rate was $1.30 an hour.
“I am going out on $10.57 an hour.” Mr Nasilokia said this was a clear indication of how the company has progressed.
“Now people who are joining now on the same work performed when I started were receiving over $5 an hour. He said his employment has seen one of his sons become a teacher.
“We never received bonuses before.”
In April this year when we announced the record breaking $7 million bonus payout to our landowners, a remarkable achievement for Fiji Pine, social media was questioning how Fiji Pine could pay such a large sum to our landowners, incorrectly claiming that our accounts were not audited for over a decade.
Faiz Khan Executive chairman for Pine Group of Companies