$4.4M refurbished Parliament of Fiji opened

The newly refurbished $4.4 million Parliament of Fiji has been officially commissioned by Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka.

The project began in November last year, soon after the sitting of Parliament and includes an upgraded IT Conference System.

Present at the event were the Speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Fiji, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Tourism, Civil Aviation and Education, Viliame Gavoka, Assistant Minister for Agriculture Tomasi Tunabuna and Leader of the Opposition Inia Seruiratu.

Secretary-General to Parliament, Jeanette Emberson says this new upgrade intends to create a global body that is driven by excellence and passion to serve all Fijians.

She also acknowledged the Coalition government.

The deployment of the project was to be 5-fold and included procurement of a new conferencing system, refurbishment of the Parliament Chambers, procurement of the uninterrupted power supply equipment, upgrading of the audio-visual distribution system from analog to digital and the multi-language translations and captioning.

Ongoing work includes evaluating Vosa Vakaviti, Hindi and English captioning on the Walesi platform, as well as testing the voting system and For the Record system with Hansard.