DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION FIJI NEWS SUMMARY 05/05/15 4:30PM

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1 NEW JUDGE SWORN-IN BY THE PRESIDENT –  His Excellency the President, Ratu Epeli Nailatikau today welcomed another member to the Fijian Judiciary.

2 GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM AND REMOTE SENSING (GIS/RS) USER FORUM – The Geographical Information System and Remote Sensing (GIS/RS) User forum will meet on Tuesday, 5th May, 2015.

3 FOUR FIRE VICTIMS RECEIVE GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE – The Fijian Government continues to assist eligible families who lost their homes in fires this year.

4 RELIEF FOR NADURUMOLI FARMERS – Farmers in a close knit multi-racial society were in a jovial mood when the Ministry of Agriculture recently conducted its first phase of the Irrigation Project at Nadurumoli village in the Province of Nadroga/Navosa.

 

1 NEW JUDGE SWORN-IN BY THE PRESIDENT

His Excellency the President, Ratu Epeli Nailatikau today welcomed another member to the Fijian Judiciary.

Judge to the Court of Appeal, Wannakuwattewaduge Jude Shavindra Fernando was sworn in this morning at Government House by the Head of State.

The Sri Lankan lawyer holds double Masters of Law (LLM) from the University of Colombo and Kings College, London with a focus on law relating to Public International Law.

He was admitted to the Sri Lankan bar in 1987 as an Additional Solicitor general and worked at the Attorney General’s Department for close to 11 years.

Judge Fernando continued with his legal career as a Judge Advocate General and Director General Legal Services for the Sri Lankan Navy from 1998.

 

2 GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM AND REMOTE SENSING (GIS/RS) USER FORUM 

The Geographical Information System and Remote Sensing (GIS/RS) User forum will meet on Tuesday, 5th May, 2015.

After 22 years of existence, this is the first time that this Forum is held in the Western Division and is being hosted by the Sugarcane Industry Stakeholders at the First Landing Resort, at Vuda Point starting at 9.00am.

The Ministry of Sugar Industry acting permanent secretary Mr Parmesh Chand will open the forum.

“We anticipate a total number of 65 participants from Government, CROP agency and Consultancy companies that are already using Geographical information in their decision making process,” Mr Chand said.

“The meeting will bring together GIS/RS users to discuss their current activities and how this technology has helped them in their decision making in terms of capturing data that is relatively accurate, reliable and timely.

Additionally, potential users and stakeholders are invited to join and update themselves with this modern technology that developed countries are using to assist in their decision making.”

 

3 FOUR FIRE VICTIMS RECEIVE GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE

The Fijian Government continues to assist eligible families who lost their homes in fires this year.

This morning the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Environment, Hon. Parveen Kumar presented a cheque of $5000 each to four families whose homes were destroyed by fire this year.

Minister Kumar said the government assistance of $20,000 for the four families is part of the Emergency Assistance for Fire Victims which is sourced from a national budgetary allocation of $1million for this year.

He said the financial assistance will help the families rebuild their homes and lives.

“We sympathise with the families for what they have lost and we also thank them for their patience. There was delay in the processing but this morning we have distributed the cheques to the recipients,” Minister Kumar said.

The four recipients include Ateca Adi Tukana of Kalabu Housing, Sarwan Kumaran Sami of Nadera, Rajeshwar Rai of Olosara in Sigatoka and Sudesh Prasad of Naselai, Bau.

Minister Kumar said the Housing Department worked closely with the National Fire Authority and the Fiji Police Force in identifying beneficiaries.

This assistance, administered by the Department of Housing, is given to those fire victims whose annual income is less than $50,000 and who have a residential lease with no house insurance.

Meanwhile, the first batch of six families was assisted under the Emergency Assistance for Fire Victims on 26th March, 2015.

 

4 RELIEF FOR NADURUMOLI FARMERS

Farmers in a close knit multi-racial society were in a jovial mood when the Ministry of Agriculture recently conducted its first phase of the Irrigation Project at Nadurumoli village in the Province of Nadroga/Navosa.

The project was initiated in November last year through the Ministry’s Extension Division under the Export Promotion Program [EPP] of the Demand Driven Approach [DDA] program in partnership with the Land and Water Resource Management Division [LWRM] at a cost of $55,497.29.

The Ministry’s Senior Agriculture Officer (Potato) Mohammed Kadir Khan said the project was implemented because the area has high potential of producing potatoes due to good soil structure and texture and will also improve the livelihood of the farmers.

“The project will benefit 13 farmers of Nadurumoli who have been living in the area of about 157 acres from a long time with their main problem of getting water from the source to their destination,” he said.

He said most of these farmers were engaged in cash crop farming, mixed farming and are planting in their separate block of leased land through the “Bailey Trusts” sub-division.

Engineer for the LWRM Division in the West, Sant Pratap said the first phase of work was marking the sites to place the pump and pipe lines as well as locating the tanks spot.

“The next phase is to install the network according to the design requirements followed by the commissioning and pumping trials, all these will commence in four weeks’ time,” he said.

51-year-old farmer Miti Qara expressed his joy and said that he was pleased with the assistance in bringing the water closer to his farm.

Another farmer Salendra Prakash aged 40 said that because they faced difficulty in accessing water from the river to the farm, bringing it closer will now save time and labour.

 

Press Release

 

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