Ministry awaits Vatuwaqa Primary fire report

The Ministry of Education is waiting for initial engineering reports about the Vatuwaqa Primary School before taking any further action.

Minister for Education Aseri Radrodro told Parliament that NRW Macallan (Fiji) Ltd’s engineers have conducted a thorough inspection of the burnt buildings with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) team.

On December 12, 2022, a fire entirely burned one school block and partially damaged another, with an initial report suggesting that the fire occurred around 2 am.

On December 13, NFA classified the fire as suspected arson.

Other schools

Mr Radrodro said there were several schools that were also being destroyed by fire.

“Ongoing fire rehabilitation is happening at the Lelean Memorial School and Vanuakula Catholic School in Waidina, Naitasiri,” he said.

“Degei House in Ratu Kadavulevu School (RKS) is at a completion stage and should be handed over during the 100-year centennial celebration for the school next week.

“Other burnt dormitories included Sukuna House in RKS and Verata House and Rewa House in Queen Victoria School (QVS) have also been included in this year’s budget and preliminary works have been undertaken, a tender to be called before the end of this month.”

Mr Radrodro said there were also other schools that had suffered the same fate through fire incidents, which included Ba Special School, and plans are in line to start in this financial year.

He said the ministry has set up a Rehabilitation Unit within our Asset and Infrastructure Section, and they had plans to secure rehabilitation staff within the first quarter of this financial year.

“Once the Unit is up and running, we will relook at all the scoping reports and drawings provided by the lead consultants that were engaged with the then Construction Implementation Unit (CIU) of ministry.”

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