Landowning Unit Collecting $1 Million Annually
THIS IS EXPECTED TO INCREASE AS MORE BUSINESSES SET UP ON THEIR LAND
Alandowning unit in Lautoka, that receives around $1million annually in rental, with the figure expected to increase, have put their business dealings down to proper planning. The mataqali Matarisiga, of Vitogo Village, said too much iTaukei land have been given off for cheap leasing and this was the downfall of some landowning unit (mataqalis).
Spokesman and former parliamentarian Tomasi Sauqaqa said the landowning unit are now slowly reaping the rewards for proper planning.
The mataqali owns around 2500 acres of land just outside Lautoka, from just opposite the Fiji Water Office along the Naikabula Road and up into the back hills.
The mataqali kindly offered to lease some land at a very small price to two organisations, Koroitpita, a housing development that provides housing at very low rental to low income earners and the HART at Lovu, and which also runs the housing project along similar lanes.
Mr Sauqaqa said Koroipita have asked for more land and that was still being worked out.
The Mataqali Matarisiga Trust, which is the business arm of the landowners presently, handles all such matters but this will soon be changed to Matarisiga Investment PTE Limited.
“Part of the land at Naikabula is taken up by Tengy Cement (Fiji) Company Limited, a cement company, Petra Enterprise of which they are part owners, Ba Industries and Tube Makers, belonging to hardware giants Vinod Patel.”
At present the Trust is developing land for industrial purposes, commercial and residential and this includes putting in place infrastructure likes roads, water and electricity.
Water Authority of Fiji’s catchment at Buabua also sits on the mataqali land.
Mr Sauqaqa said: “If you look at the land outside Lautoka towards Nadi, some one acre blocks have been sold for $1 million while some land towards Ba from Lautoka have been sold for only $60,000. “When we said this was not going to happen to us because the land is valuable and it needed to be sold at a better price so that the members of the mataqali benefitted properly. “So that is why we decided to upgrade the land and have been given a licence to source gravel from the Buabua River and also from the Ba River for our stone crusher which we had invested $5 million in. “We sat back and really worked on what was going to be best for us.”
“We have helped both Koroipita and HART and we did that because of the cause that it was being done for.”
Mr Sauqaqa said they would be spending around $1 million on upgrading the land and around $2.5 million on an extraction contracted project at the Ba River and $1.2 million from the Buabua River. “One good thing that has happened was that the Lautoka City Council has extended the town boundary to as far as Lovu Sangam School and our land that is being developed is within that boundary. “This means that those that buy the residential blocks will have all the services provided by the council.”
For now, the mataqali is collecting $1 million in rent but that is expected to increase with a lot of businesses showing their interest in setting up business on their land.