Hari Punja

Hari Punja, OF, OBE (born 1936) is an Indian businessman and Chairman of Hari Punja Group of Companies in Fiji.

Interview with World Investment News, 21 January 2003 (excerpts)

 * I would never be involved in an illegal activity. I believe I was related to the coup because I was criticising the Chaudry Government. When Chaudry became Prime Minister he was very unfair to my companies, infrastructure wise, and I was taking him to court and to the media. In the midst of this the coup happened. Mr Qarase, who became the Prime Minister, was previously Assistant Chairman of one of my companies where I was the Chairman. These were the reasons that have caused the rumours. Yes, I did not like the Chaudry government but no, I was not related to the coup plot.
 * on rumours that he had helped to finance the coup d'état fronted by George Speight in May 2000


 * I think that we (Indo-Fijians) have a great future in this country if we can grab the opportunities that are ahead of us.


 * Indo-Fijians have a good future in Fiji but unfortunately they are being ill-advised, their community leaders lack good leadership.

Interview with the Fiji Times, 25 September 2005 (excerpts)

 * I went to a Harvard seminar in Sydney recently and the name of the seminar was 'Family businesses: successes and pitfalls'. The lecturer there said a typical family business is one where the founder starts it, the second generation builds it up and the third generation blows it up. Now there is a lot of truth in that.''


 * In business I believe the idea is to look for opportunities and if you do what others are doing you will never succeed.


 * I like to look for hard entries. If the entry level is easy then everybody comes in and competes with you and the country has no shortage of copycats.


 * My strategy has always been do something that is hard to follow.