About 86 per cent of the Fiji Roads Authority (FRA) budget for the 2022-2023 financial year has been utilised.
Minister for Public Works, Transport and Infrastructure Ro Filipe Tuisawau said this in response to a question from Opposition parliamentarian Ioane Naivalurua.
He asked Ro Filipe to inform Parliament whether the infrastructure projects budgeted for the 2022-2023 financial year would be completed, and what was the progress.
In response, Ro Filipe said the ministry, together with statutory agencies such as FRA, Water Authority of Fiji and the energy department, was given $535.7 million to carry out comprehensive capital works.
He said some key areas included a $362.9m allocation towards road networks, $115.1m to improve water sector infrastructure and 178 schemes of the grid extension and house wiring projects billed at about $19.3m.
“The Fiji Roads Authority (FRA) was allocated $60m for road corridor maintenance, streetlights maintenance and structure maintenance,” he stated. About $50m was for the renewal of some roads and services, $31.4m for renewal of bridges and crossings and $998,368 for the renewal of six jetties.
“The FRA worked on a total of 88 projects, of which 33 ranged from bridges and crossing renewals, new jetty construction to road upgrades in the three divisions, Central/Eastern, Northern and Western.
“For the remaining 55 FRA projects, 23 have been completed, 23 are ongoing and nine have been cancelled.
“In the financial year 2022-2023, the Public Sector Investment Program (PSIP) had requested $437.3m through the capital grant, of which $162.5m for Transport Infrastructure Investment Sector Project (TIISP) loan funded projects. However, only $362.9m was approved.”
He said the rising cost of inflation and freight was also a major factor as contractors had sought compensation in this regard.
