PM, FRA boss discuss road concerns

Aseries of discussions have been held between the Prime Minister and the Fiji Roads Authority (FRA) chief executive officer after concerns were raised on the state of roads in the maritime and rural areas. This was confirmed by FRA chief executive officer Jonathan Moore after the issue was again raised during talanoa discussions at Nanukuloa, Ra, yesterday. The talanoa discussions came at the end of the Ra Provincial Council meeting and the iYaubula Day celebrations, which Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama closed yesterday. Responding to a concern raised by a villager about poor roads, Mr Bainimarama said the same concern – in respect of rural and maritime roads – had been raised with FRA.

“I have talked to the FRA chief to look into this,” he said.

Mr Moore said he discussed the rural roads issue with the Prime Minister when they were in Levuka earlier this week. He said Mr Bainimarama expressed concerns to him about quality and timely maintenance and the issues were being addressed.

“The issue with rural roads is that they are unsealed and require frequent monitoring to ensure they remain in a stable condition,” Mr Moore said.

“The monitoring is a challenge with a centralised organisation, so since I joined FRA last year I have been working with our board and the management team to increase our presence in the field by changing our operations based in three offices to one based in 12 offices. “This change is now taking place so we should see more localised coverage of all rural areas going forward. This will increase our ability to monitor the conditions frequently.”

Meanwhile, during the talanoa session, Mr Bainimarama urged the people of Ra to look after civil servants well.

He said they were posted to the province to work for and serve the people.