Fijian Deputy Prime Minister Biman Prasad says he intends to resign after being charged with corruption-related offences, adding fresh strain to Sitiveni Rabuka’s coalition government.
According to the RNZ report, Prasad, who also oversees government finances, has verbally told Rabuka he plans to step down. State broadcaster FBC reported that the charge may relate to an alleged failure to declare his directorship in hotel ventures as required under the Political Parties Act, though the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption has not publicly detailed the allegation.
The significance of the case is not just that a senior minister has been charged. It is that Prasad would be the second deputy prime minister in Rabuka’s government to face corruption-related allegations within a short period. Last week, Manoa Kamikamica resigned from Cabinet after being charged with perjury and giving false information to a public servant. The result is a widening political crisis around the integrity of the governing team.
The report says Prasad is set to appear in Suva Magistrates Court on November 17, and that he had signaled he would not attend the day’s Cabinet meeting. Those details suggest the resignation is being handled as a near-term political fact rather than a hypothetical possibility.
Prasad is also the leader of the National Federation Party, which makes the consequences potentially broader than a simple personnel change. A resignation by a party leader from Cabinet can alter coalition dynamics, government stability and the allocation of key finance responsibilities.
The RNZ report also notes that Prasad was one of three deputy prime ministers in the government. That structure means the fallout from his departure would not be isolated. It would affect the wider balance of power inside a coalition that has already seen one deputy PM leave after criminal charges.
The charges themselves remain opaque in the public material supplied for this report. That limits what can be said confidently about the merits of the case. But the political message is clear enough: the government is being forced to absorb another high-level scandal at a time when voters are already seeing repeated allegations against senior figures.
For Rabuka, the immediate challenge is practical. He has to manage a possible Cabinet resignation, a pending court appearance and the optics of another senior ally stepping aside under legal pressure. For Fiji’s politics, the larger issue is whether the succession of charges against top officials will damage confidence in the coalition’s capacity to govern cleanly.
