PINE logs lying at the Wairiki port for the past four years have resulted in a loss of about $1.5million to Fiji Pine, says Tropik Wood Industries Limited chief executive Faiz Khan.
And he pointed out poor planning by past management as the cause of the loss. He also agreed that poor planning meant that past management had started harvesting pine four years ago because they had planned for the Wairiki mill to start operations much earlier than this year.
Mr Khan, who took over executive role last year, said the pine logs piled at the Tropik Wood Products Limited yard (Wairiki port) weighed about 15,000 tonnes.
He said the logs at the Wairiki yard also included logs harvested from the Nawailevu bauxite mining area.
"With the recent slump in world market demand, chances are that old logs will go to waste. Loss to Fiji Pine is around $1.5million," Mr Khan said.
"We are not sure of being able to use it. We have been trying to find a buyer but there are quality and recovery issues," he said. "The chances are likely that the buyers won't buy the pine logs because of the low quality compared to fresh pine logs just harvested."
Mr Khan said if the logs were sold, recovery for the four-year old logs would stand at around 50 to 60 per cent compared to the 85 per cent of newly-harvested logs.
"We will try to make some positive use of it by giving it to Fiji Sugar Corporation if they want for free so that they can power their boilers with it. This will contribute to the economy," he said.
Last week, Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama said corruption and mismanagement by Fiji Pine's past management delayed the Wairiki project in Bua by 15 years. He made the comment at the launch of the chipping operations.
Commodore Bainimarama also said government would not allow this to happen again at Wairiki or with any other public enterprise.