Money is allocated to the Nasinu Town Council to collect rubbish every day and one just needs to step out to notice all the blocked drains and rubbish disposals of big companies.
This was one of the issues highlighted by Nasole resident Avinesh Kumar at the Budget Roadshow with the Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum at Rishikul Sanatan College last night.
Kumar went on to voice his concern about bus companies not being taken to task for the heavy smoke emissions from their buses and claims that taxpayers are having to pay for government to address these issues.
Sayed-Khaiyum then stressed that there are many businesses in Fiji not just in Nasinu that pump waste into water systems and the environment and they should not be doing this and obviously the allocation for the Ministry of Environment has been increased significantly to look into this issue.
He also highlighted that every single cent collected from the Environmental Climate Adaptation Levy and Service Turnover Tax must be spent in climate adaptation or environmental measures.
Sayed-Khaiyum then explained that through the Environmental Climate Adaptation Levy and Service Turnover Tax, 3 villages have been moved to higher ground, it costs money to relocate villages and ensuring that they have sustained livelihoods and government has another 43 villages to move to higher ground and if they do not move them, the people of these villages will be living in water.
While responding to Kumar’s claim on the constant rise in the cost of living, Sayed-Khaiyum highlighted that government has placed price control on certain items that are imported to help control the cost of living as most the items imported such as wheat for flour, fuel and cooking oil are not locally produced.
The Minister for Economy also stressed that government has also reduced VAT from 15% to 9%.
