Deputy chief executive officer of the iTaukei Affairs Board Colonel Apakuki Kurusiga has urged the people of Kadavu to assist Government in development projects by helping themselves first before asking for assistance.
He made the comment during a meeting between the Prime Minister Hon. Voreqe Bainimarama and the respective district representatives and village headmen at Vunisea today.
“Government does not only have Kadavu to serve but the whole of Fiji and I want to reiterate that we must move away from the handout mentality to self-help in order to better our living standards,” he said.
“We (iTaukei) always boast about being land owners but we still cannot fully utilise our lands and continue to ask Government for assistance. This must change, we need to start trying ourselves and with the abundance of land and fishing grounds, we should not be asking government to help us.”
He added that total development projects to be implemented in Kadavu this year would be $1.56 million and this is aimed at improving infrastructure.
“We have a lot of programmes for rural and outer islands and Kadavu must be grateful that Government continues to improve infrastructure around the country especially for us living in the outer islands,” Mr Kurusiga added.
“Recently, Government also announced that it would subsidise fuel for companies flying to Kadavu in order to assist in economic developments.”
In addition to opening up more department and agencies, government has constructed a new wharf, bridges, roads and improved maintenance on their drainage systems to better serve the people on the island.
DEPTFO