The Public Accounts sub-committee is presently hearing presentations from town councils about its annual reports and financials.
What stands out is the persistent issue of outstanding financial reports, outstanding town rates and non-enforcement of town bylaws.
Why so?
The solution does not come from rocket science, but the main contributing factors are the employment of incompetent staff and indulgence, and influence of the central government in councils’ affairs.
For Nadi, there is no enforcement of any laws and by-laws that the council is entrusted with.
Two glaring examples are traffic bylaws and anti-litter by-laws.
You won’t find any parking spots because whoever parks first parks for long periods of time without feeding the parking meters, and they are not booked.
Then, you have taxis parking at parking meters meters without paying while the allocated taxi parking ranks remain empty.
If that is not enough, you have rubbish strewn as far as the eye can see.
This is because the garbage collection trucks are mostly unserviceable and there are insufficient and unsuitable garbage bins in public places.
And we call Nadi Town a ‘Tourist Town’.
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