CEO tells Gavoka to Count the Cost of Reducing Roads $200m
The budget allocation for FRA was never more than $500m as suggested by Mr Gavoka.
Reducing $200million from the Fiji Roads Authority (FRA) budget will deteriorate the level of service on the road and increase the cost of operating vehicles.
This was the response of FRA’s chief executive officer, Kamal Prasad on Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA) leader Viliame Gavoka’s comments on providing free tertiary education by reducing the budget on roads to $300 million.
In an interview with the Fiji Sun, Mr Gavoka said SODELPA had estimated that it would cost $200 million each year to introduce free tertiary education in Fiji.
He claimed that roads had a budget of more than $500 million over the years, however, this was not the case.
The 2021-2022 Revised Budget for FRA was $338.2m, the 2020-2021 Budget for FRA was $348.9m and the total allocation for FRA in the 2019-2020 budget was $419.4m.
The budget allocation for FRA was never more than $500m as suggested by Mr Gavoka.
Mr Prasad said the number of people using the roads would be impacted.
“It’s the cost, the vehicle operating cost will increase, that is what is going to happen,” he said.
The CEO said critical bridges
around the country would also be affected.
“We’ve got programmes set up for replacement of bridges, that is our main project that will get affected,” he said.
“They are all critical bridges around the country. There are 159
we must replace. 40 are in design now and the other 100 we are getting pre-feasibility so that will have to stop.”
“Even a huge portion of rip and remake programmes ongoing around the country would be impacted.
“That would remake the programme, FRA would have to slow down.”
He said what FRA could do in two years would take about three and a half years or four years depending on the weather.
Mr Prasad claimed the deferring of works was a problem from previous years.
“And then there are safety improvements that we won’t be able to do which we are planning,” the CEO said.
“Our implementation for bus shelters is pretty slow because we are doing other stuff that we need to put first.
“And there are plans to catch up with the existing roads so we can then start building roads in locations where there are no roads.”