Some State-owned lots have iTaukei land that need to be returned to their landowners, says Minister for Lands and Mineral Resources Jone Usamate.
While responding to a question from Opposition MP Adi Litia Qionibaravi on Thursday, he explained that the Crown land had to be surveyed and reverted back to the original owners before any development could take place.
“Some of these lots of land, however, have a mixture of State land and iTaukei land so before you revert it, you have to do the survey and cut it up,” he said.
“So that there is one lot and part of it is iTaukei and part of it is State, you only have to revert the iTaukei bit back to the original owners, to the yavusa.
“So we have to do these surveys to identify which bit is going to be reverted and which are not.”
This process was given an allocation of $222,000.
