The payment of salaries of CEOs of smaller municipal councils are supported by the Local Government Ministry.
Minister Premila Kumar said this in Parliament yesterday when asked to clarify the allocation of CEO salaries for respective municipal councils.
“So the number of municipal councils mentioned like for example Nasinu, Sigatoka, Tavua and Levuka including Ba, we are helping them with the salaries of CEOs because we believe that they should be paid the right market rate so that they can deliver their services,” she said.
Mrs Kumar said one only had to look at the size of the municipality to understand their capabilities.
“Levuka only has 166 ratepayers. How do you expect to beautify Levuka and to deliver the services?
“Tavua, they have got only 311 ratepayers and Sigatoka with 249 ratepayers.
“Surely we can increase the rate but this is not the time to increase the rate because we know that people are going through hardship and we will not increase the rate unlike the rest of the world.”
Mrs Kumar said the ministry was also assisting Nasinu Municipal Council in this area.
“One may wonder why Nasinu, simply because the rate we are charging per dollar is so insignificant when we compare Nasinu with Suva. “Nasinu only invoices just $5 million as compared to Suva they invoice $18 million and when we look at the population size or even the number of ratepayers it is similar.
“So that’s the difficulty Nasinu is facing.”
