INFRASTRUCTURE Minister Jone Usamate says an increase in the length of roads and the subsequent increase in maintenance costs in the country has resulted in increased expenditure on roadworks.
He made the comment while speaking in Parliament last week on Friday in response to a statement made by Opposition parliamentarian Aseri Radrodro.
Mr Radrodro claimed Fiji’s roads could have been cemented had the former road agency — the Public Works Department — been given the same amount of funding as the Fiji Roads Authority.
Mr Usamate said Fiji had 7600km of roads and over the past 10 years, the number of unsealed roads taken over by the FRA increased by 2000km.
“So the volume of road maintenance that has to be undertaken, has dramatically increased,” he said.
“FRA has now taken over the maintenance of a lot of sugarcane access roads.
“The quality of those roads, traditionally, was done at a very low standard.
“Now, FRA is taking over those roads because we need to make sure that the bus and RSL services can continue to be provided.
“So if you want to compare the status of roads now with the status of it 10 years ago, you are not comparing apples with apples.”
You have to look at the totality of what has happened.”
Mr Usamate added that the FRA now looked after 1200 bridges, 8220 streetlights and kilometres of footpaths.
