The Attorney-General and Minister for Public Enterprises, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum receives a dividend cheque of $3.65 million from the newly-appointed Fiji Ports Corporation chairman, Tevita Kuruvakadua. Photo: PAULINI RATULAILAI
A-G stresses need to maintain infrastructure
By RACHNA LAL
Fiji Ports Corporation has indicated plans to use part of the corporation’s profits from the 2012 financial year for capital expansion projects.
Fiji Ports, continuing to strengthen its financial position, recorded a net profit after tax of $7.31 million for the 2012 financial year.
This was a 30 per cent increase compared to the previous corresponding year, where a net profit of $5.64 million was recorded.
Newly-appointed chairman, Tevita Kuruvakadua made these comments yesterday as the state-owned enterprise handed 50 per cent of its profit to Government in the form of dividends.
Mr Kuruvakadua handed a cheque of $3.65 million to the Attorney-General and Minister for Public Enterprises, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum in Suva.
“The board of Fiji Ports has plans for some expansion of its current ports facilities so those funds will be factored into part of our capital expenditure,” Mr Kuruvakadua said.
Strategic planning
As far as how much would be invested, Mr Kuruvakadua said they do not have a set figure at present but will be looking at it as part of their strategic planning process in the next financial year.
“The previous board already had a port reform programme plan that we will be looking at again and determine the actual sums that will be involved as to how we can structure it out in terms of the budget,” he said.
Maintain infrastructure
Meanwhile, Mr Sayed-Khaiyum noted the importance of maintaining the infrastructure in the country.
He stressed this was one of the reasons for Government to take only part of the profits so the remainder can be used for upgrading existing infrastructure.
“Some of the problems in the past has been, under the previous policies, Government has taken away all the dividends,” he said.
“If you have major infrastructure, you need to continue to look after it to maintain it. Of course it can be built into operational costs sometimes.
“For example in FEA (Fiji Electricity Authority), they need to ensure the Monasavu Dam is still doing well and it costs a lot of money to do that.”
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said Government recognises this fact that in many of the state-owned enterprises, many of the infrastructures was delipidating and was not well-maintained.
“So that was a policy-decision made for them to reinvest in infrastructure. Infrastructure is not just able to continue with a particular standard but also to be able to expand its operations.”
Further plans
Mr Kuruvakadua said in line with Government’s bigger plans of port reforms, they are going to continue to pursue in this financial year and the years to follow.
“The 30 per cent increase reflects the potential the company has in terms of operations,” he said.
“With the public-private partnership arrangement we have with Aitken Spence and Ports Terminal Limited, the board is quite confident that it will do better in years to come.”
In terms of future programmes, the board of Fiji Ports is also looking at improving customer services in line with undertaking some of the services that is linked with information technology.
“We would like to improve more in that area and we hope that partnering with Aitken Spence will help improving in that area,” he said.