The revived Naitasiri Investments Holdings Pte Ltd will now be strengthened to drive investment initiatives for the province. And part of that strengthening will involve offers to the people of Naitasiri to own shares in their provincial company, said acting chairman Esrom Immanuel.

“This goes in line with the move and objectives by the Government to assist the provinces and get iTaukei into businesses.

“Part of that is assistance to provinces that have set up their own companies, so they can assist the provincial council itself. Naitasiri did not have a company operating. We have a company registered but dormant for some time until this year, so we are about to strengthen it. All the investments for Naitasiri are placed under the care of the provincial council,” Mr Immanuel said.

He said the company would be working with the Naitasiri Provincial Council and the iTaukei Affairs Board to move some of the funds earned from its investments into the holdings company to strengthen it.

“We’ll then do share issues, firstly to Tikina level and later on to village level or even to individual to raise funds, instead of going to the bank to borrow. So, from our equity, we can borrow in the market. And now is a good time to invest as well as the interest rates in the market is quite low (deposit rates).”

The province traditionally invested in shares and unit trusts but decided to diversify to properties after the COVID-19 pandemic and had its eyes on the Pacific Energy service station at the Sawani Rd junction on Princes Rd.

“We are lucky to have had good returns on our investment. We invested strategically in the early 2000 and before COVID, we invested $700,000 in money terms and before COVID, the value of our investments was around $2.4 million,” Mr Immanuel said.

“COVID dampened the value a bit so we managed to move from shares and put the funds into fixed interest investments just waiting for investments now into the holdings company.”

He said talks were ongoing with the owner of the service station.

“We’re still doing due diligence, checking everything from the title to the funding and also with the partners that we intend to go with.

“A service station will need a good manager, a good operator. It will also help our people going up to the highlands. If you go to Sawani, you will see a few of the businesses there have grown because of the people of Naitasiri.

“So, we want to see whether we can capitalise on that too by buying that (service station) and directing all the people going to and from Naitasiri to it,” Mr Immanuel said.