More than 46,000 Fijians, including business communities, will now no longer have to worry about water supply after the commissioning of a new $9.5 million raw water treatment plant in Waiwai, Ba.
While commissioning the project, Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama says the challenges Fiji faced a decade ago in the water and wastewater sector were enormous.
He says years of under-investment and short-sighted planning had produced ageing and increasingly unreliable pipes, treatment plants, reticulation systems, and other water and wastewater infrastructure.
Bainimarama says they were not prepared to watch helplessly as that happened adding they are mustering the investment, the political will, and, above all, the vision necessary to expand water and wastewater access in Fiji.
The Prime Minister highlighted that since 2009, they have allocated over $1.56 billion towards water and wastewater projects.
He says those resources have built resilient infrastructure that can withstand climate impacts – because we understand that we must either pay now to build back better or risk much higher costs on our communities when future storms strike.
