[Source: Parliament of the Republic of Fiji/Facebook]

The expansion plans by Walesi Fiji Limited is currently on hold as the special audit and inquiry into the satellite digital television platform is ongoing.

While responding to questions by the Public Accounts Committee members in Walesi’s 2018-2019 financial report, Chief Executive Sanjay Maharaj says the preliminary report on the investigation conducted by ITU consultant has been handed over to the Minister for Communication Manoa Kamikamica.

There are plans to open new outlets for Walesi customers in Nakasi, Nausori and Seaqaqa, but this is subject to the outcome of the inquiry into the company.

“Unfortunately, that has been put on hold until such time that, as you may know, that there’s a special audit or special inquiry going on Walesi, so the Honorable Deputy Prime Minister and our line minister, Minister of Communications, has put all plans on hold until such time that the outcome of the inquiry or the audit is finalized.”

Sanjay Maharaj  [Source: Parliament of the Republic of Fiji/Facebook]

A question was asked by PAC Chair Sakiusa Tubuna if Walesi is looking at partnering with other agencies to reach the remote areas.

“Perhaps maybe for Walesi to look into working in collaboration with other agencies that are in the area, particularly in the outer islands, where you need people to fix up connections and all those sort of things.”

[Source: Parliament of the Republic of Fiji/Facebook]

The Walesi CEO says they are looking at reviving talks with Post Fiji Limited on this.

“For remote islands, like you rightly mentioned, it’s difficult to find staffing, it’s costly to have a staff just attending to, say, two calls a day or two customers a day. So that was the thought process. We’ll definitely revive that, and like I said, certain things were put on hold. We hope that that matter will be resolved soon, and we’ll be allowed to carry on with what we were doing and carry on with that initiative.”

Maharaj was also asked by PAC member Alvick Maharaj to give an update on their installation project.

“CEO, you actually mentioned about this community project that Walesi used to carry out, especially actually installing a TV and the dish for the communities to actually watch the free-to-air channels provided through Walesi platform. Just would like to inquire if this project is still on?”

[Source: Parliament of the Republic of Fiji/Facebook]

The Chief Executive says they have done only three installation using their operational budget upon requests from customers.

“Again, we used to get funding for this project. It wasn’t a huge funding, it was around $50,000 a year to do this sort of project. That has stalled in the last year. We didn’t get any funding last year for the community installation projects.”

He adds Walesi did not get any funding specifically for community installations in the last two years.

So far, Walesi has distributed 245,000 set top boxes through-out the country.