The Permanent Secretary for Lands Tevita Boseiwaqa has re-assured the i-taukei community that the Land Use Decree which established the Land Bank was drafted to act in the best interest of landowners.

Boseiwaqa says the Decree promotes transparency, good will and dialogue between the landowners, lessees and the state.

He made the comments after FBC News asked him on the legal advice he had sought from the Solicitor General’s Office on whether landowners can seek legal address from the courts over any matter that may arise while their lands are being administered by the Land Bank.

“in the Land Use Decree it doesn’t really allow that if you look at it and in one of our talk back shows we were questioned about it”.

Boseiwaqa however says, the Land Use Decree has other mechanisms of addressing issues through mediation and dialgoue between stake holders outside the court.

“They look at grievances been raised..they ensure that we go along with the objectives….the onus is on us to awoken those to have a mechanism in place like a grievances committee or an appeals committee where we can always refer grievances but the bottom line here is, the more we consult critical decisions to be made with the landowners the better.”

Boseiwaqa explained the i-taukei community also have the option to ask for the return of their land to the Prime Minister after five years.

“That’s in the regulation to cease after five years. so within the five years we can assume that development has taken place which is the objective…so if we add all these up we can see the intention”.

The objective of the Land Use Decree Boseiwaqa says, is to utilize idle native land by ensuring its done in the best interest of the landowners.

He says, the intention of the decree is also to cut out the bureaucracies that slows down the process of development to take place on a piece of land as quickly as possible.