Awaiting maintenance
Ovalau roads
I WISH to add to Anthony Sahai’s letter published in FT (March 27, 2021) about Ovalau roads.
To be clear, we are not just talking about a few potholes. We are talking life threateningly dangerous roads; an immediate and foreseeable collapse of the road system on the island’s East coast; serious and expensive daily damage to vehicles; inevitable damage to the agriculture and economy of the island; and an apparently foolhardy disregard by authorities for public life and welfare.
I was reliably informed there is a budget of $3m in total to cover the roads maintenance for the three major islands of Ovalau, Gau and Koro for the next year. This allocation is clearly inadequate. I was further advised there is no major project planned for the roads in Ovalau – so we don’t even have the consolation of hope. Our only, reluctant, option is to make as much noise as possible until our voice is heard.
We still await repairs to our roads caused by TC Winston over five years ago, yet Government announced expenditure of $200m on the much more recently damaged roads on Vanua Levu. Ignoring our needs in such a reverse chronological order rubs salt in our Ovalau wounds.
Talking of salt. Ovalau Island vehicle owners lose hundreds of dollars on a daily basis through repairs/maintenance/depreciation etc. The sea water pools and salt riddled, bad roads reduce the expected 20 years lifetime of a new vehicle down to around 15 years. This, conservatively represents a loss of foreign earnings of $600,000 per year. Similarly, the poor roads cause vehicles to be less fuel efficient, by about 30 per cent.
Translated to the average island vehicle, that means owners buy approx 500 litres of additional fuel per year.
Multiplied by the, say, 200 vehicles on the island at any given time, then we are looking at 100,000 litres ($200,000) of additional fuel (and its attendant pollution) each year.
Where is the environmental and economic sense in that?
The current reality is we pay premium price for fuel on Ovalau because of the additional shipping costs. I strongly suggest, until the roads are fixed, there should be a subsidy on fuel to Ovalau and all outer islands where the roads are similarly substandard. We do have an FRA roads supervisor on Ovalau. Yet it appears he has no money, equipment or labour to actually do anything, except to report back to an apparently deaf and blind administration.
What is the point of him being employed full time in Ovalau? Is the question on everyone’s lips. Occasionally, a contractor arrives to carry out token, Band-Aid, grading of the road, especially before ministerial visits, but little else. Such contractors are merely a sop to the conscience of the authorities.
I have, several times, challenged the former CEO of the Fiji Roads Authority to bring his personal and privately-owned vehicle to Ovalau and drive around the island.
Of course he didn’t do that. I repeat that challenge.
Failing that, let me sincerely, publicly and at his convenience, offer to freely drive him around the island (albeit not in a posh new Landcruiser) and point out all the horrors of the road and the “disasters waiting to happen”.
Lastly, it is almost laughably inequitable for Ovalau vehicle owners to pay a road levy – what road? That is like paying someone to punch you in the face!
DAVID KIRTON
Rukuruku settlement, Ovalau Island