Speaker of Parliament Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu

Speaker of Parliament Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu has urged MPs to come prepared in the next Parliament sitting to scrutinize the special investigation report on the Housing Authority.

Ratu Naiqama has labelled the report, which covers illegal allocation of lots and abuse of tender processes, as serious in nature.

This as 59 cases are currently being investigated by the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption, one is before the court, and 12 customer files have gone missing.

The investigation was carried out in 2020 by the Office of the Auditor General.

“I would like to invite your views, especially when we have three reports that we have just heard that are very serious in nature—files are missing and even officials have moved on without being interviewed. Given the seriousness of the cases, we now have before us the oversight and scrutiny role that Parliament plays.”

Meanwhile, Chair of the Standing Committee of Public Accounts, Esrom Emanuel, has thanked the then Minister for Housing, Premila Kumar, who initiated the investigation, and then Board Chair Lorraine Seeto.

He also thanked them for being present to the committee to present their views.

Emanuel also claimed that Praveen Bala, who was also a Minister for Housing at one time, did not appear before the committee when requested.

However, Bala denied the allegation, saying he was not invited before the committee.