This Weekend we Shine A Light on a questionable matter that was brought to our attention only recently.
Upon enquiring, our Investigative editor and senior journalist, Ivamere Nataro, found that more than five years after monies were released under the Help for Homes initiative, many villagers in Tailevu have not received building materials to date.
The spotlight is on two hardware companies, whose executives and representatives have yet to answer our queries.
Many Fijians and people all over the world will remember the wrath of Tropical Cyclone Winston which devastated our economy and took the lives of 44 people on February 7, 2016.
Such was the magnitude of the Category 5 cyclone that hundreds of homes were destroyed.
It was a cyclone that Fiji wasn’t prepared for.
The Government immediately declared a state of emergency and humanitarian organisations and international financial institutions reached out and opened their coffers to respond to the call.
Many of those whose homes were destroyed were forced to live in tents while others collected what was left of their homes to rebuild them.
Still, the Government and stakeholders were adamant that if Fiji was to go through another cyclone as strong as Winston, it was best to mitigate the risks rather than face another devastating blow in the future.
And so, the Help for Homes initiative was born.
It was aimed at helping those who were not in the financial position to build back better and more importantly, to ensure that the next time around, the homes would be built to withstand a Category 5 cyclone.
Two years later, depending on the damage to one’s home, $1500, $3000 or $7000 were released to the successful applicants.
In order to see that this money was not misused by recipients, Government sent out an Expression of Interest to hardware companies for the supply of the building materials.
It is safe to say that some recipients did receive the building materials however, many have not.
Then Opposition Member of Parliament, Biman Prasad, was so impassioned about their plight that he demanded what the then Bainimarama Government was doing about it.
However, now the Minister for Finance, Mr Prasad has not yet given a comment on the matter.
Yet here we are at a time when the country is going through another cyclone season, with much uncertainty, and the answers for these poor villagers remain unanswered.
Ms Nataro visited some villages in Tailevu which were supposed to receive the building materials.
In one of the villages, it’s hard to miss the signage illustrating how to build a cyclone-proof home.
But behind that signage, homes looking the very opposite of this illustration is apparent.
Upon further findings, Ms Nataro noted that these homes were built by the villagers at their own expense because they could no longer wait for the rest or all of the building materials to arrive.
They claim to have taken their complaints to relevant authorities but it has fallen on deaf ears. Until now.
And villagers are demanding answers.
They want to know why they have not received the building materials, let alone where the millions of dollars injected into the initiative, have gone to?
This series does not end here.
Watch this space as we shed more light on this saga in our upcoming Shine A Light editions.
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