Villagers willing to relocate: Tabuya

Minister for Environment and Climate Change Lynda Tabuya for the first time visited Cogea Village and its relocation site at Naro in Bua.

Apart from Nabavatu Village in Vanua Levu, Cogea Village is also waiting to be relocated for more than five years.

Nabavatu Village in Macuata was destroyed by Tropical Cyclone Ana in 2021 and Tropical Cyclone Yasa washed away houses at Cogea Village in 2020.

The Cogea Village relocation project is driven by a Non-Government Organisation (NGO), Fiji Council of Social Services (FCOSS).

“The Government has offered several times to assist but it’s up to the community, vanua, village and NGO to involve Government,” Ms Tabuya said.

“When it comes to working with community we must come and listen to what the vanua and people want. During my visit I have heard from the villagers that they are willingly to relocate.”

She highlighted the importance of coming together to have discussion.

During her visit she sat down with the youths to have discussion.

“There are many communities in Fiji that needs to be relocated but the Government is prioritising in terms of the needs,” she added.

FCOSS executive director Vani Catanasiga said it was good to see that the Minister for Environment and Climate Change has gone to visit the new village site of Cogea.

“We are glad that she has checked in with the villagers and the workers at the site as well,” Ms Catanasiga said.

“We note that she has spoken in a workshop during her visit to Labasa that Government has offered several times to help, which comes as a surprise to us.

If this was offered to the community in the past, we were never made aware of this offer whilst doing extensive community engagements with the community themselves since the project begun.”

She said FCOSS has always sought to work with Government to support climate frontline communities.

Cokonaki Cogea project

FCOSS has documented in the past how the organisation has tried to do that within the scope of project Cokonaki Cogea.

It has gone to the extent of paying for the costs associated with the engagement of officials of key agencies to build capacity in Cogea.

“We’ve also had to pull from project funds to pay for unanticipated costs associated with ensuring the site (which was surveyed by the Fiji Government and determined as the new village site before the project was commenced by FCOSS was safe and ready for building,” she said.

“It would be good to verify the offer of support because we have tried unsuccessfully to secure support for various services including a request to the national relocation taskforce to reimburse unanticipated costs such as timber milling training for villagers from the district of Wainunu and the extensive civil works for the waterlogged site chosen after geotechnical surveys conducted by Government.”

She said FCOSS’s last attempt to do this was last year when a submission to Minister for Finance for reimbursements of those costs were made.

Despite this she said no substantive support was received from Government to progress the works.

“These and other factors such as logistical challenges related to the rainy weather conditions and remoteness that Wainunu district is known for, has delayed works on the site,” she said.

Earlier this week, FCOSS issued a non-completion notice to contractor, Magnum Construction Limited which has received close to $1million to date for work at Cogea.

It has since met with the company management and awaits an official request for an extension and an accelerated workplan so that works are completed by June 2026.

“We continue to record lessons learnt and have had the opportunity to share these across various climate mobility spaces,” she added.