Saturday July 25th 2020
The National Federation Party claims the Fiji government has grossly inflated the annual budgets of Fiji Roads Authority over the past 8 years but even FRA has shown no value for the taxpayers’ given to it.
NFP President Pio Tikoduadua says since 2012, FRA has been allocated a total sum of over $4.415 billion in all budgets but has actually received $2.616 billion in total over the last 8 years.
“This represents only 63.1% of the budgeted sums for the last eight years”.
“This is yet another sign that the grossly inflated sums allocated each year were bogus”.
“But even $2.616 billion is a massive amount of money the scope of works done over the years doesn’t justify value for money.”
“For example $166 million was allocated for the short route from Nadi Airport to Wailoaloa junction for a four-lane highway.”
“This amount equates to $41.5 million per 4km lane. Two lanes were already in existence and needed remedial works only”.
“This is just one example of poor planning and disregard for value for money”.
“At the same time the current government has been fooling the people of Fiji by making gross over-allocations when FRA didn’t actually receive the budgeted funds”.
“For example in the 2019-20 budget FRA was allocated $419 million but the 2020-21 budget forecasts an expenditure of $276 million. This is a reduction of $143 million”.
“Yet the Economy Minister, quite misleadingly, in our view, announced when delivering the budget that FRA allocation has increased by over $70 million to $348 million when last year $419 million was allocated”.
“This is the kind of budget bungling that has led to our economic strangulation that started in 2020 well before COVID-19”.
“We will have more to say on this during the budget debate next week”.
-ENDS-