Minister for Sugar, Charan Jeath Singh.

The former board of the Fiji Sugar Corporation must be made to answer questions on how they allowed the FSC to run irresponsibly with lavish expenditure without transparency and accountability says the Minister for Sugar.

Charan Jeath Singh said this after revealing the exorbitant salaries paid to at least five senior executives of FSC over the last eleven years.

Singh says it is grossly shocking and disgraceful that the former CEO’s were paid up to $840,000 per annum in salary and allowances.

The Sugar Minister says these executives enjoyed a hefty salary package and other benefits while the industry continued to collapse taking down with it the innocent farmers who have for generations invested their blood and sweat in the cane fields.

“What we going to be doing is of course first find out which board members were there who had actually appointed them and who had agreed to these type of salaries . I know these current CEO’ who is there is doing a good job and whether his salary should be $250,000 or not is something that we will look at the industry structure and see what the CEO’s get. But for certain Abdul Khan and Graham Clarke and others were paid so much that FSC technically could not afford it and as of today you can see we have, FSC is morally bankrupt.”

Singh says there was an absolute waste and exploitation of desperate and much-needed funds.