Hari Punja
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Hari Punja (born 1937) is a Fijian business tycoon. He heads a Lautoka-based conglomerate of 15 companies, with investments in rice, flour mills, hotels, the media, printing, packaging, and food processing, and one of its largest companies is Flour Mills of Fiji, which Punja founded on 15 July 1972. All told, his companies have an annual turnover in excess of F$150 million.
Punja, the fourth son of an Indian trader who emigrated to Fiji in 1914, was chairman and managing director of the Punja and Sons conglomerate founded by his father until 1998, when he broke away to form his own conglomerate, Hari Punja and Sons. He did this, he told the Fiji Times on 25 September 2005, to give his sons a business to call their own, citing fears that potential disagreements between his sons and their cousins could lead to the collapse of the business. He avoided causing ill-feeling, however, by taking almost no assets with him when he left the parent company. "Most families, when they break away, they usually split up the assets ... (but) when I decided to leave nothing of the sort occurred. I just walked away and started all over again and basically wanted to be on my own," he explained. "I had no problems with the family then and I have no problems with the family now." The empires run by the two branches of the family have an intense, but friendly, rivalry in the Fijian economy.
He has also held political office, having served as a Senator from 1996 to 1999.
Punja was a close friend of the late Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, Fiji's longtime Prime Minister and President, and, unlike the majority of his fellow Indo-Fijians, was a strong supporter of Mara's government. He opposed the government of Mahendra Chaudhry, Fiji's first Prime Minister of Indian origin, which came to power in the 1999 parliamentary election. The Chaudhry government's moves to break up Punja's business empire, including his virtual rice monopoly, provoked a lawsuit from Punja, which was still outstanding at the time of the coup d'état which deposed the government in 2000.
In an interview with World Investment News on 21 January 2003, Punja emphatically denied rumours that he had been involved in the 2000 coup in any way. He was opposed to the Chaudhry government, he said, but would never be involved in an illegal activity.
On the 33rd anniversary of the founding of Flour Mills of Fiji, Punja said on 15 July 2005 that he was not interested in the debate over the government's controversial Reconciliation, Tolerance, and Unity Bill, which proposes to establish a Commission empowered to compensate victims and pardon perpetrators of the 2000 coup. Despite the passionate emotions unleashed by both supporters and opponents of the legislation, Punja said he had more important matters on his mind. "Different businessmen have different problems," he said. Of far greater concern to him was the government's unresolved dispute with Vanuatu over a ban on the importing of Fijian biscuits, which has negatively affected Punja's business interests.
Despite the uncertainty of the Fijian political scene, Punja said he had confidence in the local economy, and intended to invest at least F$30 million in the next two years.
