A number of landowning units and landowners made agreements with previous governments which exempts them from paying water and sewerage bills for several years.
And now the current government is tasked with looking into these arrangements to verify when the agreements were made and who is entitled to free water and sewerage services for allowing the State to use their land for water infrastructure projects.
Works Ministry Spokesperson Sainiana Waqainabete confirmed there are several different arrangements in place which entitles them free services and they are looking at standardizing these agreements to ensure only those entitled are exempted from paying water and sewerage bills.
Fijivillage also questioned Waqainabete on whether these arrangements would remain in place in the future. She said these are policy issues the government would have to look into.
The latest Public Accounts Committee report on the 2006 Auditor General=s report on Infrastructure Services has revealed the Tamavua villagers claim that the reservoirs are located on their land and that there had been an arrangement made with the Ministry to waive the charges entitling them to get free service.
However the committee said although the audit was informed that under an agreement, only five landowners were exempted from paying for their water bills, there was no documentary evidence to substantiate the claim.
Furthermore the Public Accounts Committee said one of the chiefs of Tamavua village, Ratu Meli Loki Tunisau was claiming the same arrangement should apply to his property at Ragg Avenue and he had disputed the charges, the arrears of which had reached $20,495 in 2006.
The Committee reveals that there were others like Ratu Meli Loki who were claiming free water for their residence outside the village.
Govt looks into landowning agreements
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