Residents Plea For Protection Of  Heritage Homes

Several homes and buildings on Levuka, Ovalau were declared as heritage landmarks by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2013.

These homeowners have pleaded for further dialogue with the Government on how they could be assisted in maintaining their homes.

They took advantage of the opportunity to make their plea known during the budget consultations with the Attorney-General and Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum and Minister for Education Heritage and Arts Premila Kumar on Sunday.

Guesthouse owner Vikash Dutt said an issue they frequently faced was the high cost in transporting building materials over to Ovalau from Suva.

Mr Dutt pleaded with the Government to look into innovative ways to ease this burden.

Minister Kumar said they would consider drafting a proposal to be part of their budget submission to assist with the issue.

“For heritage issues, there are two types: one is for the public building, and the other one is for privately owned property."

"So for public building, we have been investing money in small amounts to get, for example, the town hall that you see has been fixed,” she said.

“The second point is there is an issue with the National Trust of Fiji as well as heritage staff. They’re not able to give very clear guidelines to the people who own the buildings in terms of how they should fix it.

“I have been talking to both the teams and then now they’re going to upload some information on their website, which will be more of a checklist where you can follow that through and it will be easier for you to proceed with the renovation work.”

She said she would try and put in a proposal on behalf of the Heritage owned building owners if there could be some form of concession given like a VAT waiver or something that could assist bring the price down.

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