Every citizen in Fiji has the right to live with dignity and this means certain fundamentals need to be fulfilled, people need to eat, have a roof over their head, have security or some sort of certainty over their lives.
Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum highlighted this at the opening of 12 new houses at the Koroipita Model Town in Lautoka.
Sayed-Khaiyum says under the Fijian constitution there is a right to housing, the right to housing of course has to be contextualised with the means the government has.
The Attorney General says housing for a number of decades in Fiji has been quite neglected, and what they have tried to do is have a couple of fronts open for housing.
He says they are collaborating with the New Zealand Government on building these types of homes.
Sayed-Khaiyum says they are currently working with Housing Authority and IFC to have more subdivisions where government can work with the private sector to provide strata housing.
Sayed-Khaiyum says he would like to thank the trustees and also the landowners who agreed to lease the land because it also raises the value of the land around it.
The 12 houses that were just completed, New Zealand Aid funded the material costs and the labour costs while the Fijian Government funded the infrastructure which is the building of the roads, drains and septic tanks.
They were constructed by the Model Towns Charitable Trust construction crew which is made up of residents of Koroipita.
The next 30 houses to be built in Koroipita will be fully funded by the Fijian Government which has set aside $2.18 million for this.
