Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has stated that amending Fiji’s outdated mining laws, which are rooted in the nation’s colonial past, will be a complex and time-consuming process requiring extensive national consultation.
Speaking at a Fijian Media Association Town Hall in Tavua last night, the Prime Minister provided a historical justification for the delay, explaining that the current legislation is a legacy of the British colonial system.
He was responding to a question raised by a landowner who wanted to know when the Mininst Act will be reviewed that they have a share of the royalty.
“We have inherited our acts and so on from the British system,” PM Rabuka said.
“Those acts and laws were guided by the various ownership laws that guided the British government of the realm and the colonies at the time.”
He traced the origin of these laws back to the 1874 Deed of Cession, when Fiji’s paramount chiefs ceded the islands to Great Britain.
The Prime Minister noted that the legal framework established then, governing surface rights, mineral rights, and fishing grounds, remained largely unchanged through various colonial administrations until independence in 1970.
“To change that law would mean a lot of headaches for a lot of people,” he cautioned, highlighting the need to balance the expectations of multiple stakeholders.
“Not only the landowners, who have been waiting all these times for a change, not only of the mining act, but also those land rights act that will need to be revised.”
The Prime Minister emphasized that his government is committed to a thorough and inclusive process to get the reforms right.
“It will take time for us to revise the act, to go through the process of amending the act, [to] satisfy the population of this country,” PM Rabuka stated.
He signalled that the path forward involves “wider consultations” and discussions with all key players, including investors and other stakeholders in the mining industry.
“We will need wider consultations, investor discussions with investors, and those that all the stakeholders in the mining industry [are] involved in in Fiji.”
