The Minister for Transport, Parveen Bala, yesterday reassured Parliament that all roads in remote and rural areas will be fixed.

He made this statement while responding to questions posed by Opposition MP, Mikaele Leawere.

Mr Leawere had asked the minister if they were going to make plans to repair rural and remote roads. Mr Bala said the Opposition should be made aware that the Fiji Roads Authority dealt with the issue.

He reiterated that the authority met with divisional officers on a monthly basis to work out ways to improve and maintain roads in rural areas.

Mr Bala said the authority had their offices based in all divisions around the country and they took care of the issues. He clarified that following the signing of an agreement in February 2016, the construction and upgrade of rural roads, the authority and relevant authorities met to re-prioritise rural roads in each division.

Mr Bala told Parliament the authority had a unit monitoring all the sub contractors to see that roads were repaired.

5000 litter bookings reported last year

Municipal councils around the country reported more than 5000 litter bookings last year, Mr Bala revealed in Parliament yesterday.

The Minister said this was apart from the warnings issued by litter prevention officers who were appointed by municipal councils in a bid to promote clean and green environment.

Promoting good sanitation standards, Mr Bala said Government and municipal councils had invested heavily in improving garbage collection and disposal through 15 garbage trucks distributed among councils.

In addition, municipal councils had a free quarterly clean-up programme for ratepayers and citizens. Mr Bala said the programme was for green waste and white goods collections introduced in 2015, which proved successful.

He also revealed that town centres had 8289 market vendors selling local produce and they needed Government assistance.

As far as the issuing of business licence Mr Bala said the process had been streamlined with municipal councils now issuing new business licences within a maximum of three days.

Edited by Naisa Koroi

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