Former senior civil servant Saverio Baleikanacea called out Fiji’s poor compliance with the UN Convention regarding the right to adequate housing.
Speaking at a public consultation on the National Housing Draft Policy 2024-2030 last Wednesday, Mr Baleikanacea said the Government needed to prioritise housing.
“The Government is saying that everybody is entitled to housing, the policy should provide for that,” he said.
“They also see here that the housing is not the same for everybody, and my advice to the Government is to prioritise the housing issue.
“Those people out there in the squatter or informal settlement, not to mention the people on the streets, they have housing issues.
“Everybody’s got a housing need, everybody’s got the right to housing, so it’s not only those people who have jobs or have a business, its everyone, everybody who is on the street, everybody who is out there squatting everybody and not forgetting our people in the village and rural settlements.
“It must be decent, accessible, according to this vision everybody is supposed to have a house, and I think that’s consistent with your UN convention.”
He said the Government was currently occupying state land that did not necessarily belong to it.
“I used to work with the Ministry of iTaukei Affairs and we put up a paper to the Government, during the last government and they shelved the paper because we recommended that most of the land the Government is sitting on now is iTaukei land and the submission was prepared by the Ministry of iTaukei Affairs.
“You know what the government did, they shelved the paper for obvious reasons.”
He also questioned the approval process for land subdivisions.
“I make an issue about some of the land subdivisions that are being approved now ranging from 400 to 500 square metres.
“What’s decent about that, how do we approve that, there’s no decency about those subdivisional lots.
“What is decent about the rooms that are approved by the town planning at the local municipalities.
“Government for a start should put its house in order. We heard about the agreement with TLTB, what have you achieved out of this arrangement with TLTB?”
New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Housing advisor Keith Hornby said this was a very complex issue.
“I guess that that’s what the International Development Plan tries to achieve, is to provide that cohesive view, and then the housing policy kind of provides the second focus,” he said.
