SODELPA MP, Lynda Tabuya says Minister for Housing, Premila Kumar needs to take responsibility for the recent stabbing incident in Mead Road Housing, Nabua and should not blame Public Rental Board employees while the Minister says the tenant has been staying at the flat when she was in her 30s and is now 58 years old and they are not encouraging this.
While debating the Review Report of the Standing Committee on the Public Rental Board’s Annual Report 2016, Tabuya says the Minister has stated that she had directed the board to profile all the tenants and by January 8th, nothing had been done.
She says however there are conflicting reports from within the Ministry saying that the employees had provided a very extensive profiling to the Ministry and it was conducted by the Board.
Tabuya also says PRB's 2016 Annual Report recorded a decrease in PRB rentals and it appears from the ground that most of the people have given up while some are still on the waiting list but there are families living in PRB flats who are above the means test and should be out of there.
She adds the recent cyclone has shown a lack of adequate housing in squatter and informal settlements with poor drainage systems causing immense flooding as well as roofs being blown off and homes destroyed.
The MP says there are 15 families in Ucuna Settlement in Nakasi who do not have electricity and their concern is the stringent requirements and costs to connect electricity.
She also raised concerns on the merger of PRB with Housing Authority.
Minister for Housing, Premila Kumar says they have done a thorough investigation in the Mead Road case and have found that when the woman was given the flat many years ago, she was barely in her 30s and is now 58 years old.
Kumar says the woman could not accumulate her deposit and move out and she continued to live there and had her children and grandchildren.
She says this is something that they are not encouraging and are trying to curb.
Kumar says PRB’s role is to assist those families who take the first step to home ownership by providing them subsidized rental flats and helping them save money to make deposits needed for home ownership but unfortunately they do not see this happening and instead have come across cases where families who have been subsidized by the government are abusing the extra money they have on hand and that is why they are seeing that they indulge in drinking parties.
She also highlighted that the operational merger of Housing Authority and PRB will bring in many advantages, not only in saving costs but also provide access to funds and new technology.
The Minister says there are certain services carried out by both organisations that can be consolidated. This includes Customer Services, Finance, Human Resources, Credit Management and Information Technology and Housing Authority can provide additional services in Legal, Internal Audit and Risk and Land and Housing Development.
Kumar adds it is not prudent for PRB to engage in construction of rental flats on land given by Housing Authority when the expertise lies with Housing Authority.
Meanwhile, SODELPA MP Niko Nawaikula says Kumar has admitted that people have been living in informal settlements for years and that is the failure on the government's part.
He says the government has failed and not provided housing needs to those between the ages of 20-35 years who cannot afford rent and a room in PRB.
Responding to Nawaikula, Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says Nawaikula is speaking as if prior to 2007 people have not been living in informal settlements but there are people who have been living there for upto 70 years.
He says the value of a house must appreciate in 20 years time but because we have a ghettoisation of these places, property prices cannot increase.
He adds that different types of families can live in buildings with strata titles with different price points therefore, the price will continuously appreciate.
Responding to Tabuya on people losing electricity connection during the cyclones, he says they will get connected if there is approval but there is a need to get consent of the land owners.
He also says that they are working with the private sector on 6 sites and they are also working on different models with the International Financial Corporation and the Australian government.
The Minister adds that there is a need to have a project that will attract private sector investment.
Sayed-Khaiyum has also highlighted that laws need to be changed and regulatory amendments need to be made.
He says people in the private sector with modern technology in Fiji obviously cannot come to Fiji or are hesitant to come or cannot leave their own countries because they are not allowed to travel.
Sayed-Khaiyum says there is a need to increase a stockpile of homes and when there is an increase of the stockpile there is less pressure on demand for housing so if the private sector local investors are doing strata titles and if the Ministry of Housing is providing $30,000 grant and if you are building your own home and banks are lending money then there is a demand for it and if these people are building their own homes then there is less demand for public rental homes.
He adds that the formalisation of squatter areas means that people will be given proper leases and once they get the formalisation, water supply, electricity, roads and 99 year leases, they can go to banks with that lease as security and get mortgage so they can build proper homes because no one is going to build a proper concrete home if they have a year to year tenancy.
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