Taxi fleet to promote party

Listen to this article:

The Tiko Kece taxi base in Nabua, Suva. Picture: JONA KONATACI

THE owner of one of Fiji’s largest fleet of taxis has vowed to use its vehicles to help the FijiFirst party in its campaign.

Tiko Kece base owner Ratu Lomaca Baleilevuka said the reason was that the Government had assisted them with the issuing of taxi permits.

“It was the decision of Tiko Kece to assist FijiFirst. It’s because of them our business is a success. We also supported them in the 2014 General Election
and we will support them again this year,” Ratu Lomaca said.

“I called their office and requested if the FijiFirst stickers could be placed on the 160 taxis.

“The FijiFirst Government is the only government that helped us compared to the previous ones.

“They didn’t approach us. Let me clarify that because it sounds bad to say that FijiFirst approached us to help them with their campaign.”

He added it would depend entirely on individual taxidrivers whether they wanted to put the FijiFirst stickers.

A Tiko Kece taxi operator claimed the FijFirst party office had contacted the taxi base owner requesting him to ask the taxidrivers to have the FijiFirst
party stickers on their taxis.

Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem said the taxis had put up FijiFirst party stickers in the last election.

“Public service vehicles are owned by private individuals and there is no prohibition of any such activity,” Mr Saneem said.

He said it wasn’t an issue and that all political parties could do the same.

Efforts to get comments from Fiji- First party general secretary Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum were unsuccessful when this edition went to press last night.

Array
(
    [post_type] => post
    [post_status] => publish
    [orderby] => date
    [order] => DESC
    [update_post_term_cache] => 
    [update_post_meta_cache] => 
    [cache_results] => 
    [category__in] => 1
    [posts_per_page] => 4
    [offset] => 0
    [no_found_rows] => 1
    [date_query] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [after] => Array
                        (
                            [year] => 2023
                            [month] => 12
                            [day] => 19
                        )

                    [inclusive] => 1
                )

        )

)