Group will not tolerate overloading up North
THE Fiji Pine Ltd will not tolerate any overloading of trucks carrying pine to the Wairiki Chip Mill in Bua. Chief executive officer Vimlesh Kumar said all cartage services must comply with the law.
His comment follows concerns raised by the public and other logging companies that trucks headed for the mill in Wairiki were at most times overloaded.
The Fiji Times has also seen this over the past years with the recent overloaded truck parked outside Bua College.
Compared with logging trucks that head towards mills in Labasa and Savusavu that carry the required weight, the trucks in Bua have been seen overloaded with logs.
Mr Kumar, however, has not condoned this saying that all loggers must comply with the law.
“There are mechanisms within the law to enforce this and we see this being done. As an organisation, we work with the relevant authorities, particularly when there is blatant abuse by any service provider,” he said.
“We impose fines on the service providers who abuse as well.
“However, there are many service providers who take all necessary steps to comply with the legal weight provisions.”
Mr Kumar said no one would want to be exposed to substantial penalties that were applied on overloading.
“When it comes to the weight of logs, there are many factors that determine the weight. Log density varies between different areas of harvest.
“Further, when logs are left out in the forest to dry before being carted, the weight drops substantially.
“Therefore, the load height cannot be a factor to precisely make a conclusion on the weight.”