The Nadi Town Council is now awaiting approval from the Ministry of Local Government to expand the boundary of the town into a city, said council chief executive Peter Dinning.

“The Council is awaiting the submissions made to the Local Government to officially start the expansion of Nadi Town into Nadi City,” Mr Dinning said.

“There has been a submission made to Government and that is being made by the local government committee.

“That submission will be reviewed and the council will have to answer a number of questions in relation to the expansion of Nadi Town into Nadi city.”

He said the committee would be making its recommendation to go with it, about what to proceed with and where to proceed.

“Also whether to include areas like Denarau and Nasoso and places like that because they were initially discussed and we do not know the final outcome yet as we have not seen the recommendations,” Mr Dinning said.

“I have always said there is a middle ground where we include those areas or whether we just include the rural areas.

“That decision will be made by government once the committee has made its recommendations to go with it.”

Mr Dinning also highlighted that the council had already started advertising for expression of interest in reference to Nadi becoming a city.

“The Declaration of Nadi town to Nadi city is due in, around November, 2017, our plans in terms of the councils programme to make sure we are ready for that,” Mr Dinning said.

“We just have called for expression of interest to help with marketing and logo changes; its simple to change from Nadi Town to Nadi city in words but what does it mean?

“There are a lot of things to do. We will be writing to other agencies, FRA, Water Authority, Fiji Electricity Authority, just to consult with those agencies.

“But we need to wait until the decision by Government to proceed and where the areas are that we proceed with.”

Edited by Rusiate Mataika

Feedback:  litia.tikomailepanoni@fijisun.com.fj