About 11,000 people will be protected from flooding, thanks to the Ministry of Waterways’ de-silting project, which will commence at Vitogo Village in Lautoka today.

The Public-Private Partnership (PPP) with Digmach Civil and Building Contractors Ltd are ex­pected to protect these people who are part of 250 households resid­ing along the Vitogo waterway. They are often victims of flood waters.

Commissioning the de-silting works project at the village yester­day, the Minister for Waterways, Environment and Agriculture, Mahendra Reddy said the project was made possible thanks to a request from Member of Parlia­ment, Jese Saukuru.

“I thank the honorable Jese Saukuru who has been at the forefront of asking us to assist the community at Vitogo Village within the framework of the Min­istry of Waterways programme to protect communities throughout Fiji from climate change,” he said.

“We are here with a private sec­tor, Digmach Civil and Building Contractors Ltd, to protect your communities from flooding. The project will start from your vil­lage, and go 20 kilometres down to clear the materials.

“This work won’t finish in a week, month or two months. This is 20km of work so it will take a lot of time.

He said in the last three months, about 150 villages placed requests to construct seawalls.

“On our list today there are 164 villages that require seawall,” he added.

Village headman, Ratu Napolioni Waqa said because there were two rivers close to the village area, flooding was a common issue.

He said he was content that at least some work to help stop the issue of flooding was beginning.