The Housing Authority of Fiji is working on developing new lots in an effort to return to its core business objective of providing homes to low and medium-income earners.

Chief Executive Ritesh Singh says they do not wish to compete with commercial banks, but their fundamental aim is to develop lots for this specific group and increase their loan portfolio.

Giving an example of the Covata, Labasa subdivision, Singh says they are working on fulfilling people’s dreams of owning homes.

“We will make sure that we are funding for their land acquisition, and we’re also funding for their house construction. So if we just do a roughly 100 blocks, times an average of $100,000 loan per customer, we’re talking about $10 million that we will be lending to them. And that will straight away come into our portfolio that will then increase the whole portfolio.”

Singh says it takes up to two years to acquire land and plan the lot development activities.

This year, the Housing Authority is working on subdivisions in Mokosoi and Tavakubu in Lautoka.

Singh stresses that under the New Lot Allotment Policy, all applications must be done online, while some customers have the provision to come to the HA Office.

Housing Authority emphasizes that these applications go through various stages of vetting before they are approved for processing.