Fiji landowners accuse Govt of pandering to mine developer

Transcript

Fiji landowners say government officials are playing to the wishes of a mine developer and ignoring their concerns.

The Mineral Resources Department has played down suggestions of a stand-off between landowners and the developer of a proposed gold and copper mine in Namosi, near Suva.

It says there are regular meetings between all stakeholders but the Committee representing the majority of affected landowners, says those forums are a farce.

Bridget Tunnicliffe reports:

The Namosi Joint Venture is a partnership between the Australian mining company Newcrest and Japanese interests. It's been held up at various stages due to environmental concerns and the developers are still in the exploratory stage. A landowner, who wishes to remain unnamed, says it's hard to get any information and says their relationship with the developers has gone from bad to worse.

LANDOWNER: Our relationship is not too good at the moment, lots of miscommunication is happening. We told them to listen to landowners, they did not want to listen. We won't give Namosi to be mined, no.

The man says the developers have reneged on promises during the exploratory stage and landowners don't trust them anymore. But the director of Fiji's Mineral Resources Department, Malakai Finau, says that's not the case.

MALAKAI FINAU: As far as I know there are no major problems between the two but there are some problems from time to time, there are issues, the landowners or the company bring up but at the moment as far as I know the work is continuing as usual.

Malakai Finau says it could be another year before the Environmental Impact Assessment is completed. He says there are regular meetings between landowners, government officials, and the developer, where anyone can raise concerns. But the spokesperson of the Namosi Tikina Landowners Committee, Sipiriano Nariva, says those meetings are a waste of time because the government is only interested in keeping the developers happy.

SIPIRIANO NARIVA: When we blocked, or we stopped the working of NJV on our land the government very quickly stepped in but when we raise our concerns about the landowners, just there's a delay tactics, so it's just a kind of game that we know it's a useless time sitting in the forum.

Sipiriano Nariva says they want the developer to leave Fiji. He believes the prime minister is sympathetic to their concerns and would like Commodore Frank Bainimarama to urge government officials to act on them. The developer was unavailable for comment.