The Ministry for iTaukei Affairs is looking at strengthening the Bose Vanua in every Province in Fiji so that it helps them to address some of the emerging issues such as drugs and HIV, that are confronting the country right now.
Permanent Secretary for iTaukei Affairs, Pita Tagicakirewa, says they have two approaches to this, and that is to strengthen the Vanua Leadership and the Vanua Governance.
He says the iTaukei Lands and Fisheries Commission has visited five provinces, in which they are addressing the vacant leadership positions.
Tagicakirewa says their success rate has been very high, above 80 percent.
He adds for the past several years, about 47 percent of chiefly and customary positions have been filled.
The Permanent Secretary says this has remained like that for the past seven years, but now, they are going down to the villages.
He says there is a total of over 6,000 chiefly customary positions in Fiji.
In terms of alleviating poverty, Tagicakirewa says the Great Council of Chiefs made Rewa its poverty alleviation project.
He says we have a lot of natural resources, but the extreme poverty rate is quite high, and the first step towards tackling that is to fill the vacant chiefly positions.
