Water missing from Constitution Amendment Bill, says former PS
Mr Vakadravuyaca said people in the upper catchment have very clean water, which becomes very valuable once it is used in towns and cities.
Friday 16 October 2026 | 16:00
Former permanent secretary for Infrastructure, Transport, Disaster Management and Meteorological Services Taitusi Nacolakia Vakadravuyaca.
Photo: Parliament of Fiji
A former permanent secretary for Infrastructure, Transport, Disaster Management and Meteorological Services wants water to have its own section in the Constitution.
Taitusi Nacolakia Vakadravuyaca said rivers and streams were missing from the natural resources listed in the Constitution Amendment Bill.
He told the Special Committee on the Constitution (Amendment) Bill at Namosi Provincial Hall in Navua this morning that Chapter 3 named only minerals, oil and gas.
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“Water is standing out that is not included in this constitution,” he said. He said the Bill must explain who owns water, how it is governed and how landowners are compensated.
He said the Government owned the rivers and streams, but the water was “renting free of charge on the land that it’s sitting on”.
Mr Vakadravuyaca said people in the upper catchment had very clean water, which became valuable once it was used in towns and cities.
He asked the committee to rename the Ministry of Lands and Mineral Resources the Ministry of Lands and Water and Mineral Resources.
Mr Vakadravuyaca also raised concerns about changes in river courses. He said when floods changed a river’s course, as had happened on the Wainimala River in Naitasiri, landowners on one bank gained land while those on the other bank lost it.
He said the law was “very silent” on who owned that land afterwards.
Mr Vakadravuyaca said catchment landowners had raised these issues during the Viria water project. The plant is designed to supply 40 million litres of water a day to the Suva-Nausori corridor.
