News

Lands Ministry raises concern over misleading report

June 2, 2021 4:30 am

The Ministry of Lands and Mineral Resources is concerned with a report titled ‘A Line in the Sand’ based on various underground projects in Ba and Sigatoka.

The report was put together by Jubilee Australia Research Centre, Fiji Council for Social Services, and Caritas Fiji claiming that Ba and Sigatoka iron-sand projects lack social licenses to operate.

It adds that no proper consultations were done with landowners as well as parties involved, which raises serious environmental questions and concerns.

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The Ministry in a statement states that they were never contacted by any of these organizations to clarify concerns raised in the report.

The Ministry says a mining lease has been issued for the Ba delta iron sand project.

It adds that all processes were completed which allowed the issuance of the mining lease to Amex Resources, including consultations with the Vanua o Votua for the waiver of fishing rights.

Amex’s mining lease application took approximately 6 months to process.

Additionally, a mandatory 30-days objection period was activated from the date of publication of notice of application for a mining lease in the dailies and the Fiji Government gazette.

In relation to the Sigatoka project, it is still in the exploration stage and Magma Mines is currently undertaking a feasibility study of the project.

There is no iron-sand mining happening in Sigatoka.