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Finance Minister Esrom Immanuel says multiple layers of regional and international oversight will ensure the proper implementation of the Pacific Healthy Islands Transformation Project.

Speaking in Parliament, Immanuel responded to concerns over the risk of large portions of project funding being spent on consultancy services instead of directly improving healthcare delivery.

The FIT Project is a regional health initiative involving Fiji, Tonga, Kiribati and Tuvalu, supported through funding from the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, OPEC Fund and the Pandemic Fund.

Opposition MP Premila Kumar acknowledged the importance of the project but warned that major development initiatives often lose significant funding through consultancy costs.

“I do appreciate this particular project because the health system needs to be upgraded. We often see that in projects, the majority of the money is wasted or used up in consultancy services and very little is left to really carry out the work. How will you make sure that this does not happen for this project?”

Finance Minister Esrom Immanuel says the project will be closely supervised.

“With the support of the ADB and the World Bank team, they will be supervising the project together with, as I mentioned before, a steering committee comprising Pacific Island member countries, as well as our multilateral partners, and the South Pacific Commission, which is the secretariat that will assist in monitoring the implementation plan.”

The project is expected to run until August 2031. In Fiji, the project includes the construction of the country’s first radiotherapy centre in Suva, upgrades to health facilities, expanded telemedicine services, and improvements to primary healthcare infrastructure nationwide.