The sponsors of a local carnival were surprised when told about the proceeds not being utilised for charity.

Major sponsors of the Ba Farmer’s Carnival, Telecom Fiji Limited chief executive officer Mothilal de Silva, said they were not aware that the full proceeds from the carnival would not be donated for charity.

“I don’t think we knew that, it’s good that you’ve raised it,” Mr de Silva said.

“Our general expectation is also the same, that it’s toward charity. We also have to investigate that.”

The carnival is held annually to cater for the expenses of the National Farmers Union office, minutes of the carnival committee reveal.

Documents obtained by the Fiji Sun which includes minutes from a meeting held on June 18 this year at the Union’s Ba office shows that this is one of the reasons why the Carnival is being held.

The minutes state: “He (Chairperson) advised the members present at the meeting that we have to run the Ba Farmers Carnival 2016 to cater for the expenses of the NFU office and extreme needy cases.”

Committee executive chair Narendra Padarath moved the motion which was seconded by Anjila Badlu.

When contacted, Mr Padarath said this had been the practice for the last 15 years – that money collected from the carnival also was used to pay for union office expenses.

Union general secretary and leader of Fiji Labour Party Mahendra Chaudhry could not be reached for comments.

Several calls made to his mobile phone remained unanswered.

When the Fiji Sun team visited his Suva home, no one was around.

Mr Padarath asked for further questions on the issue to be emailed to him, which he said would be answered on Monday.

Ba Farmers Carnival’s naming rights sponsor was Telecom Fiji Limited.

Edited by Rusiate Mataika

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