Teleni no-show on live programme

Acting military commander Captain Esala Teleni failed to show up at a live Fijian language television talk-back show “Viti Nikua” today.

The host Sakiusa Bolaira told viewers Teleni was to have fielded questions in the weekly Sunday afternoon programme.

Apologising for the disruption to the programme, Bolaira said several attempts to get in contact with Teleni by telephone were futile. He said soldiers told them Teleni was in a meeting of military officers.

Bolaira said they were trying to get in touch with ousted Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase but couldn’t get through to him also.

Instead of the usual questions from callers put to a studio guest (or a guest over the phone), an old documentary about Fiji’s veteran soldiers who fought in the Solomon Islands in World War II was played.

Teleni was appointed in the past week as Commissioner of Police, ahead of acting police commissioner Romanu Tikotikoca. The Constitutional Offices Commission refused to answer questions about Teleni’s qualifications to head the police force over Tikotikoca saying they were “confidential”.

"We don't discuss those kinds of things with the media, that's confidential," he told a Fiji Times reporter.

Only three applicants were interviewed for the job: Tikotikoca, Teleni and a former soldier. Teleni is also deputy commissioner of the regime’s anti-corruption unit which has a fashionable-sounding acronym FICAC (pronounced fai-kak!).

The appointment of the second-highest ranking officer in the RFMF as Commissioner of Police doesn’t look right, but hey, we’re run by a military regime.