THE Government is moving to get the construction of the Waila City off the ground as soon as possible with Housing Minister Parveen Kumar saying they are adopting a “should have been done yesterday” approach.
He says that is how urgent the Government wants development on Waila City to start.
He said the only issue holding back the works from starting was talks with developers on the cost.
The developers for the project are Top Symphony, a company from Malaysia and Mr Kumar said they would have a final meet next month.
“The last meeting we had with them was for them to come up with a price that will be affordable and I can tell you that this is the final meeting that we will be having with them because we have given them a lot of time to address this issue,” Mr Kumar said.
“And now the time has come to make a final decision and they are also aware of this.
“At the end of this month, we are meeting with them and after that we can reveal what the progress has been.”
He said the Government was paying special attention to cost because it wanted to ensure the prices remained affordable for poorer Fijians.
Mr Kumar said if no agreement with Top Symphony is reached at their next meeting, Government may call for expressions of interest again.
“But I am very hopeful that definitely this will come right this time. We have had so many meetings. We will have this final meeting and Housing Authority will have to make the final decision on this.”
According to the Housing Authority, Waila City is the biggest housing project to be undertaken in Fiji, which is spread over 700 acres of freehold land.
Waila City is a multi-million dollar development project that is expected to yield about 5000 housing units that will cater for all categories of home buyers including low, middle and high income earners.
A Housing Authority survey revealed that about 3000 Fijians had already registered their interest to own a housing unit once it’s built.
