THE Public Rental Board (PRB) should be responsible for ensuring condemned buildings are secured and no longer occupied, a parliamentary committee has heard.
The issue was raised last Friday during submissions by the National Fire Authority (NFA) to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Social Affairs on the Public Health (Amendment) Bill 2026.
Opposition MP Ketan Lal questioned what role public health authorities would play in dealing with unsafe structures, citing the condemned PRB flats in Nabua where people continued to enter and occupy the buildings.
“You can still see people hanging around that place,” Mr Lal said.
“It’s unsafe. According to engineers, it’s unsafe. So how will the public health board step in?”
Responding, Ministry of Health WASH coordinator Toga Vosataki said the matter primarily fell under the National Fire Authority’s jurisdiction.
“In that particular case, since the building is clearly in the jurisdiction of NFA, NFA will take lead in not only conducting the investigation but ensuring that it’s cordoned off in such a way that no one can actually come in and start to squat or stay within the facility,” Mr Vosataki said.
He added that the NFA could seek police assistance to remove occupants, while public health authorities would only intervene where occupied dwellings posed a direct health risk.
Government MP Praveen Kumar then questioned who would be liable if a condemned building remained occupied and an accident occurred before demolition.
Mr Vosataki said responsibility rested with the PRB as the owner of the structure.
“I believe that the team from National Fire Authority would agree with me, for that particular scenario, the PRB will be responsible since the structure is theirs, and they should have a plan in place to demolish or repurpose that particular structure,” he said.
He said the PRB should also coordinate with police to prevent people from entering buildings at risk of collapse.
