Members of a family evicted by the Public Rental Board from the Votua Housing Estate on the Coral Coast have begun building their own house – next to the estate.
This was published in this newspaper on Saturday August 17, 1991.
And another family has sought approval from traditional landowners to build their own home following eviction by the PRB.
The two families are part of the original 85 people, most of whom are workers at the Warwick Hotel and Naviti Resort, evicted by the PRB following their inability to pay the board’s proposed rental increases.
Speaking to The Fiji Times, Eseta Puamau, whose husband Peniasi works at the resort, said they began building their wooden house about three weeks ago.
“It was my husband’s idea – we couldn’t afford to pay the rental increases, we were evicted so we began building this house for us and our five children,” Mrs Puamau said.
“We are using wood from the trees in the bush. There is just my husband and I and a villager from Votua Village. We haven’t really had to spend much money except to buy nails, corrugated iron and the louvres.
And another evicted tenant, a worker a the resort, who had already sought approval through traditional channels from landowners at Votua Village for a piece of land.
“Timoci (the evicted tenant) will be building his house in the hills nearby, but at this stage I am not sure who else will be following in our steps and building their own homes,” Mrs Puamau said.
A spokesman for the tenants, Navitalai Vuso said so far more than 17 of the 58 units at Votua had been evicted.
“Most of the evicted tenants have moved to Sigatoka, the staff bus picks them up on every shift,” Mr Vuso said.
“Most of them left because they simply could not afford to pay the increased rent and at the same time feed their children, school fees and other necessities,” he said.
The PRB visited the Warwick about two weeks ago and made appropriate arrangements for automatic deductions to be made from the workers’ wages.
“The tenants working at the Warwick now get their rent money – $21.40 – automatically deducted from their pay for all their other expenses, they have very little left – $5 to $10 perhaps,” Mr Vuso said.
“On top of that, the PRB is imposing a further increase. The board has notified the tenants that it will increase rent to $32 by November.”
Mr Vuso said the management at the Warwick, which also manages the Naviti, had been very supportive of the tenants rental situation.
On Wednesday, a PRB official visited the Votua Estate, according to a tenant “to put shutters up and close down some of the units needing repairs”.