The Government is working to corporatise the Water Authority of Fiji, says Finance Minister Professor Biman Prasad.
In his 2024/2025 National Budget address, Prof Prasad announced an allocation of $259.4million for the authority.
He said the Government intended to work with the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Department of Public Enterprises to take steps, over the next six months, towards the corporatisation of WAF.
“WAF is already deemed to be a so-called ‘commercial statutory authority’ but its operations are anything but commercial,” Prof Prasad said.
“WAF receives about one-tenth of the income it needs to operate and invest sustainably. This is because, for years, and mostly for political reasons, previous governments have refused to confront reality.”
He said the authority’s poor funding model meant it was wholly dependent on the Government for money it needed, and the Government could only give to WAF whatever it could afford from year to year.
Prof Prasad said for much of the past 10 years, the authority was dependent on government grants, which was only made known to it every six months.
“This makes it impossible to plan large expenditures or to borrow money for investment, except through the Government with the support of bilateral funders such as the Asian Development Bank and the European Investment Bank.”
