On Friday, it was Ro Teimumu Kepa – the Roko Tui Dreketi and former opposition leader – claiming that the iTaukei are “still haunted by the damage” caused to them by 16 years of Bainimarama rule. Today it’s Ro Teimumu Kepa claiming that laws introduced by the Bainimarama government “continue to undermine iTaukei rights”.
Both are front page stories evidently sourced from the same interview. So why the repetition? Why at the end of last week and beginning of this week does the Fiji Times not only think this is the biggest story in Fiji but is worthy of being regurgitated twice? Pearls of wisdom from someone who might be a hereditary paramount chief but who hasn’t been a democratic representative in the parliament since 2022.
Does the paper and its reporter, Phyllis Simpson, challenge Ro Teimumu’s claims by asking precisely how the iTaukei have been “damaged” and how the current laws “hurt” the iTaukei? That is the duty of any media outlet and journalist under the circumstances. Of course they don’t. Over two front pages sandwiched on either side of the weekend, the supposed threat to the iTaukei is portrayed as absolute fact when the evidence shows that it isn’t true at all.
In response to Friday’s front page, Grubsheet produced a long list of how the Bainimarama government had assisted and protected the iTaukei but you’ll never see that in the propaganda rag that now passes for Fiji’s first draft of history under the ownership of the lamentable Motibhai Patels of Ba.
So what’s the evidence for today’s front page that the 2013 Constitution “undermines iTaukei rights and institutions”? Ro Teimumu can be expected to be aggrieved that the Bainimarama government abolished the Great Council of Chiefs to which she belongs but that has been restored by Sitiveni Rabuka and we can be sure that will be entrenched in a revised constitution.
But did the abolition of the GCC really “hurt” the iTaukei? A strong argument can be made that it hurt the chiefs more than it hurt ordinary iTaukei. Because Frank Bainimarama took the money earned from native leases off the chiefs and paid it directly to iTaukei commoners.
Now that has been reversed and the chiefs are getting the money again. So many iTaukei who no longer receive direct payments can be expected to argue that losing that money is what has really hurt them.
And let’s just take a look at one of the main gripes of the GCC and its supporters – that iTaukei land rights have been diluted under the 2013 Constitution because of a supposed conflict between Sections 28 and 27.
Here’s what Section 28 says:
And here’s what Section 27 says:
What this all means is that iTaukei land and land owned by anyone else in Fiji belongs to them in law and can’t be taken away from them permanently. The accent is on “permanently”. Because if the state needs any piece of land for any purpose, it can take it temporarily. And that has always been the case.
While chiefs like Ro Teimumu Kepa and their supporters rail against this so called “conflict” in the 2013 Constitution, guess what Fiji? The same provision allowing the state to take any land temporarily is in the 1997 Constitution that many of these people want restored.
Here it is in black and white in Section 40 of the 1997 document:
So what’s all the fuss about? Stripped to its bare essentials, it is about getting rid of the dreaded 2013 Constitution altogether no matter how much of it protects not just the iTaukei but every citizen. And the Fiji Times is waging a propaganda war on behalf of its opponents with an almost total disregard for the facts.
FACT: There is no threat to the iTaukei at all – to their land or anything else that isn’t self inflicted such as drugs, HIV or poor lifestyle choices. They haven’t been hurt and alone among indigenous people the world over, own more than 90 per cent of the nation’s land surface that can never be taken from them lawfully.
This is not to say that a great many iTaukei aren’t disadvantaged economically. But a strong case can be made that Frank Bainimarama tried to address some of that disadvantage not only through policies such as free schooling but by re-directing lease payments from the chiefs to ordinary iTaukei.
FACT: The main threat in the current circumstances in Fiji isn’t to the iTaukei but the minorities. And especially through any attempt to reverse the breakthrough provisions of the 2013 Constitution – the common and equal citizenry (equal opportunity and equal votes of equal value), the common identity ( everyone “Fijian”) and the secular state ( no religion favoured over any other).
FACT: All of these, to varying degrees, are on the table in the current debate. If any of them are abolished, it isn’t the iTaukei who will be hurt but everyone else. But you won’t read about that in the Fiji Times. Because for all its boasting about being “independent”, it has made a Faustian Pact with the likes of Ro Teimumu Kepa to promote her agenda. And the proof of that is two front pages promoting her campaign to mislead within the space of just three days.
Friday’s front page:
Today’s front page:
A wilful attempt to deceive.
All that is well and good by this useless, prejudiced and entitled “High Chief”.
Has she paid her airfare on that useless pilgrimage to the Holy Land on Fiji Airways on dinau? This is now almost 3 years after the event. No one has ever gone on this pilgrimage or heard of it since!!!
Just too much hot air and not enough substance from these types. Must be an election on the horizon I guess.
How amazing. This is the same person who was leader of SODELPA at the 2014 Election and Member of Parliament for a number of years.
I don’t recall her making this an issue in the 2014 Election or in her time in Parliament. But now it is all consuming with respect to the “undermines iTaukei rights and institutions”?
As GD pointed out the only rights the previous Government removed was from the ‘Chiefs’ when it changed the payments and took the money earned from native leases off the chiefs and paid it directly to iTaukei commoners.
Now that has been reversed by the current Government and the chiefs are getting the money again. So many iTaukei are no longer receiving direct payments can be expected to argue that losing that money is what has really hurt them, curtesy of Rabuka and company.
As for the Fiji Times they are just an extension of the Government PR machine!
The amount and the desperation of the damage control speaks volumes.
Typical mix of arrogance and ignorance deflecting her own personal failures and blaming others into perpetuity. That is not haunting her.
A bit rich coming from someone that benefited immensely from 1987 and 2000 coups. That wouldn’t haunt her.
The hate filled life reflected in her face mada ga is haunting.
Benefiting personally from illegality has properly screwed the country. The treasonous coups are not haunting her.
All this talk about constitutional drafts and changes to 2013 constitution are plain scare mongering and electioneering. Designed to appease their ethno-nationalist voter base to retain power.
If the current crop is relected, watch for this hard-core racist to reincarnate herself in a position power as speaker of the house or president, or special advisor, or some such. The likes of her are otherwise unemployable.
She isn’t alone – the baboon AG, the Snake, GCC chair, ethno nationalists, the staged “consultations” in communities are shameful and shameless electioneering.
Not one person has articulated what exactly is wrong with the current constitution. Or why it’s bad for the itaukei. Or even what needs changing.
Except for the usual dog whistles along racial lines, promoting hate and bigotry.
Kepa needs to pay the 4 million dollars charter flight debt first.
Fiji Times under Feeble Fred Wesley has gone downhill. Its reporters should be taught to ask questions. Seems like the paper represents the interests of the chiefs and other elites, not the interests of the people. By currying up to the chiefs it is also serving the political and business interests of its owners. A clear example of how a weak editor makes for a weak newspaper.
Fiji Sun was doing ok but seems to be retreating. I think it sent questions to Lynda Tabuya about the second alleged tape but there is no reporting after that.
Why?
Did the Fiji Sun chicken out as well? Was it warned not to do the story?
I have not seen anything in the other media like FBC, Mai TV and Fiji TV. Is it because they receive grants from the government? I have read that print media is also getting grants. So this explains why Lynda gave money to all the media. So they will not report negative. And it is working. But using taxpayers money for her own political interests is unacceptable.
It stinks of media corruption to me. I have to agree with GD that media freedom is a farce and standards are low.
Lynda is back in the limelight again after lying low for a few days but the media are ignoring the story. As an ordinary member of the public, I don’t understand. Maybe the story is not that important? It is just speculation perhaps?
Anywhere else in the world, if a major newspaper carried a front page report of a sex tape involving a senior government minister and said it had sought comment from the minister involved, the prime minister and the police, you can bet your life that there’d be a response.
This is not speculation. Reports from within the police force and since then, the ODPP, say images of Jonathan Hill and Lynda Tabuya having sex were found when police seized Hill’s phone during his arrest over the Vatia drug haul. That suggests the recording exists.
Think about it. Why would the Fiji Sun put Grubsheet’s original story on its front page if it didn’t have its own reports that the story was true? It asked specific questions of Tabuya, the Prime Minister and the police. Then we hear nothing more about it. We can just imagine the pressure that would have been brought to bear on the Sun for having run the story.
The fact that we have heard nothing since when there could have been denials from all three is very telling. If anything, it suggests not that the story was mere speculation but that it is true but the government is resorting to its favoured tactic of ignoring it in the hope that it will go away, while putting pressure on the Fiji Sun to back off.
It isn’t going to work and truth will eventually out. Why? Because we are already in the formal election phase and a story like this may be able to be contained for a while but is too juicy for the opposition not to use its own sources to investigate and exploit. Lynda Tabuya may be regarded as an asset by Rabuka but she is a one woman walking disaster who is bound to self immolate in due course or again be exposed.
I personally am dismayed that when a leaked letter exists of the Prime Minister finding her guilty of a “sex and illicit drug scandal” in Melbourne in 2023 and removing her as PAP deputy leader that the mainstream media continues to refuse to publish it. It is a primary source of proven wrongdoing yet the media ignores it. Only in Fiji, of that you can be certain.
We talk about global warming.
This person is one of the chief contributors.
DUMP NATIVE Alert.
Low testosterone
Kerekere. Dinau Gang.
DVC
A development that has just come to light recently shows once again that just as you, GD, have been arguing, the indigenous Fijians are being screwed over by their own kind- chiefs and political and business elites.
We saw this with Qarase and the Fijian Holdings shares issuance scandal, and now we are seeing it with Manoa Kamikamica and the Google data processing Centre in Natadola.
According to the FB poster Dobbs Tukana “the landowners of Malomalo found out Google was building on their ancestral land the same way the rest of Fiji did, by seeing cables running along their beach. Nobody told them. They thought they’d signed a tourism lease.”
Manoa Kamikamica is the culprit here as he has been boasting about being behind this investment. He has been bragging about it at every opportunity. The same Manoa, who said if the taxpayers will pay him more money, then he will do a better job. Well, we did give them a pay rise and look at what they are doing to their own people. It’s pathetic to say the least.
Another one to be careful of is that thrice disbarred lawyer Filimoni Vosarogo. To think that he is the Minister for Lands and Mineral Resources should send shivers down resource owners’ spines.
Indo Fijians are useful scapegoat and red herring.
It’s their own kind that the iTaukei should be worried about, especially these two Manoa and Vosarogo – the enemies within.
I hope you can do a full article on this, GD:
𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐆𝐋𝐄. 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐋𝐀. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐓𝐇 𝐅𝐈𝐉𝐈 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑. & 𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒 𝐈𝐓 𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐏 𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆?
The landowners of Malomalo found out Google was building on their ancestral land the same way the rest of Fiji did, by seeing cables running along their beach. Nobody told them. They thought they’d signed a tourism lease.
This post does not come from theory or Google searches. It comes entirely from lived experience, real, practical work on the ground delivering major infrastructure projects across the Middle East, as part of the senior management team on the Stargate Data Centre project in Abu Dhabi alongside G42, OpenAI, and Oracle.
I am not a politician. No political affiliation, no political ambition, and I never will have any. I share this freely because I love Fiji, I love our landowners, and I love our Vanua. When you have been blessed by God to see firsthand how National Development is done right, you cannot stay silent when your own people are left behind.
That is my only motivation. 🙏
Photos attached on this post and link to the Stargate data centre story below:
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/innovation-city/inside-the-uaes-30-bn-ai-bet-where-stargate-innovation-city-and-the-gccs-compute-map-intersect?amp=1
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐄𝐃 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐊
In my first post I wrote about respecting the Vanua. About sitting with landowners in Vuda around a tanoa and hearing something that stayed with me all the way back to Dubai.
They simply wanted to dream about what their own land could become.
This week the Fiji Times reported that the landowners of Malomalo found out about the Google facility at Natadola by seeing cables running along their beach. Their understanding was that this was a tourism lease. Nobody told them a Google facility was coming.
The custodians of that coastline. The families whose ancestors fished that sea for generations. The last people to know what was being built on their own ancestral land.
Not the investors. Not the lawyers. Not the government agencies.
The landowners. Last. Again.
And I keep thinking about the other communities who have lived this same moment.
𝐌𝐨𝐦𝐢-Lost their ancestral land through a Government decree. Three governments. Twenty years. Constitutional door now permanently closed. Still no tap water in 2026.
𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐬𝐚𝐯𝐮-My own mother’s LOU. Forty to fifty Fijian dollars a year while their land powers millions of dollars of commercial activity every single day. Last to benefit from the very resource their land made possible.
𝐕𝐮𝐝𝐚-The Naikorokoro landowners came asking to dream. Found themselves in a billion dollar legal battle because they were last again.
𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐨 -Last to know. Finding out by seeing cables on their beach.
𝐃𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐬. 𝐃𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬. 𝐃𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬. 𝐒𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦. 𝐒𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭. 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐅𝐢𝐣𝐢.
𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐒𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐋𝐎𝐏𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐌𝐄𝐀𝐍𝐒
Everyone claims it. But it means one thing. Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
If the landowners of Malomalo receive no genuine long term equity in the facility built on their ancestral land their children inherit nothing from the development that sat on their land for twenty five years. That is not sustainable development.
If the Malomalo qoliqoli is impacted without proper environmental assessment and the genuine informed consent of the resource owners who depend on that sea future generations lose what their ancestors protected for them. That is not sustainable development.
If the wealth generated flows entirely offshore while the landowners receive only a lease premium their grandchildren inherit the environmental footprint without the economic return. That is not sustainable development.
That is sustainable extraction wearing the clothes of development.
True sustainable development begins with one non negotiable principle. The landowners must be first. Not last. First. Before any investor arrives. Before any lease is signed. Before any cable touches any sea.
𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐋𝐀 𝐈𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐀 𝐅𝐔𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐅𝐋𝐄𝐃𝐆𝐄𝐃 𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐀 𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐒 𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐍𝐄𝐖𝐒
I have seen serious concern on social media. Let me address that honestly because panic helps nobody.
The Google Natadola facility is a cable landing station and ICT data operation centre with storage capability. It is not a full blown hyperscale data centre.
The Stargate Abu Dhabi project we are delivering alongside G42, OpenAI and Oracle is a 5 gigawatt AI campus. Ten square miles. 3,500 people on site. Hundreds of megawatts of continuous power demand. Industrial scale cooling consuming enormous amounts of water and energy around the clock.
Fiji is not ready for that. And I say that with love and honesty. Our national power grid cannot reliably power the homes and businesses we already have. Load shedding is a regular reality for ordinary Fijian families. A full blown hyperscale data centre on our current grid would be impossible to sustain.
But Natadola is not that.
Think of it this way. If Stargate is a massive power station generating electricity for an entire region Natadola is the substation connecting Fiji to the global digital network. Four submarine cables connecting Fiji to the United States, Australia, Japan and South America make Natadola one of the most strategically important digital connectivity points in the Pacific. This is a real opportunity that genuinely excites me.
Get it right and Natadola becomes the seed of something transformational. What starts as a cable landing station becomes a regional ICT hub. What starts as an ICT hub could one day attract a full blown world class data campus as our power grid and infrastructure strengthens. That future is real. That future excites me deeply.
But only if we put the landowners first. And right now they were last.
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐄𝐂𝐇𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐏𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐂 𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐒
Even a facility of this scale has real infrastructure demands the landowners and public deserve transparent answers to.
𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫-Continuous reliable power around the clock for twenty five years. Not the kind that tolerates load shedding. Has a dedicated substation been commissioned for Natadola without straining a grid already struggling to serve ordinary Fijian families? EFL was asked. Did not answer.
𝐂𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 -Even an ICT data operation centre generates significant continuous heat. In a tropical coastal environment warm humid air is harder to cool than dry desert air. If seawater cooling is being used that directly impacts the marine temperature, oxygen levels and ecology of the Malomalo qoliqoli. The resource owners whose livelihood depends on that marine ecosystem deserved to know this before a single cable went into their sea. WAF was asked. Did not answer.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐈𝐀-Was there any Environmental Impact Assessment conducted for this facility? Not one media report mentions an EIA being filed screened or publicly consulted on. Parliament formally legislated MECC as the sole development gatekeeper in December 2025 with 7 working days for EIA screening. But Google broke ground in November 2024.
The gate was never there when it was needed most. And the people who needed that gate most were the landowners of Malomalo.
A Tourism Lease Became A Google ICT Facility. Without The Landowners Knowing.
This is the failure that matters most.
The landowners of Malomalo did not consent to a Google ICT Data Centre. They consented to a tourism lease.
When a landowner signs a tourism lease they are dreaming of a resort. Of visitors enjoying their coastline. Of hospitality income for their community.
They are not consenting to submarine cables entering their qoliqoli. Not consenting to cooling systems potentially drawing from their marine ecosystem. Not consenting to a global technology corporation establishing a strategic Pacific digital hub on their ancestral land for twenty five years.
Those are completely different developments with completely different environmental implications and completely different long term impacts on their community and their children’s future.
A tourism lease became a Google ICT facility. And the landowners found out by seeing cables on their beach.
That is not a technicality. That is a fundamental betrayal of the trust that underpins every native land agreement in Fiji. If the development changes the consent must be sought again. From scratch. Honestly. Transparently. With full information about what is actually being built and what it actually requires.
𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐭 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐥𝐚.
Social licence is not two consultation meetings about lease premiums. It is the genuine informed consent of every landowner and resource owner to the specific development on their specific land. Before any lease is signed. Before any sublease is assigned. Before any blueprint is drawn. Before any cable touches any sea.
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐖𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐌. 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐔𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐒
It has been said that the facility is owned by Google. Not by Fiji. Not by the landowners of Malomalo.
The Stargate project we are delivering is not owned by Microsoft, OpenAI or Oracle. It is owned by Khazna Data Centers a G42 UAE sovereign entity. The global technology giants are tenants. Every dollar they spend flows into UAE sovereign wealth. The infrastructure stays home. The corporations pay rent to the nation.
Now look at Natadola. There are reports saying that Google owns the facility. Google owns the cables. Fiji received a lease premium and a jobs announcement.
Simple numbers. Digital infrastructure facilities in the UAE charge between USD 150 and USD 200 per kilowatt per month. A modest 10 megawatt facility generates USD 1.5 to USD 2 million every single month. Over twenty five years that is between USD 450 million and USD 600 million from one modest facility alone.
The Natadola facility is smaller. But even at a fraction of that the data transit fees and network connectivity revenue it generates over twenty five years is significant money flowing through Fijian land using Fijian coastline touching the Malomalo qoliqoli.
Every cent flowing to Google. Not to the landowners who were last to know.
𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝐀𝐓 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐉𝐈 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐁𝐄 𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆
This is not about chasing Stargate’s scale. Fiji is not the UAE and does not need to be. It is about what becomes possible once we fix the foundation.
Overhaul the EFL grid so it can deliver continuous industrial power without load shedding. Fix WAF’s water leakages so cooling capacity is reliable. Sequence national projects correctly, landowners first, so every future development starts with genuine equity instead of a lease premium. Do that, and Fiji becomes capable of hosting something bigger than a cable landing station.
Even a modest, genuinely fully fledged 15 megawatt data centre, on the same USD 150 to USD 200 per kilowatt per month benchmark, would generate somewhere between USD 2.25 million and USD 3 million every single month. Over twenty five years that is between USD 675 million and USD 900 million, roughly FJD 1.5 billion to FJD 2 billion, in steady, compounding revenue. Not a one-time lease premium.
Not a jobs announcement. A monthly income stream tied to sovereign digital capability that did not exist in Fiji before.
That is the number Fiji should be negotiating for. Not what Google offered for a cable landing station. What a fully fledged, landowner-and-nation-owned data campus could deliver once we fix power, water and sequencing, and hold the equity instead of selling it.
Now imagine if they had been first. A 10% equity stake generating consistent monthly returns over twenty five years would create a community wealth stream that no lease premium could ever match. Landowners and their children and grandchildren receiving returns from the digital gateway on their ancestral land every single month.
Seven months from first meeting to ground broken. A tourism lease became a Google facility. The landowners found out by seeing cables on their beach. Fiji got jobs. Google got the asset.
We keep making our landowners last. And we keep calling it development.
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐒𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄. 𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓. 𝐀𝐋𝐖𝐀𝐘𝐒.
𝐎𝐧𝐞- Sit with the landowners first. Before Google. Before the lease. Show them exactly what this facility generates over twenty five years. Structure their equity. Build genuine social licence. Make them partners not passengers.
𝐓𝐰𝐨- Resolve power and cooling publicly with EFL and WAF before any approval is granted.
𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞- A spatial planning authority determines whether this aligns with the community’s vision. Not an environment ministry answering planning questions it was never designed to answer.
𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐫- Environmental impact on the qoliqoli properly assessed. Full informed community consent before any infrastructure touches their sea.
𝐅𝐢𝐯𝐞- Only then does the investor arrive. Community informed. Positioned as equity partners. Negotiating from strength. Not from need.
Get that sequence right and Natadola becomes the beginning of something genuinely transformational for Fiji. That future is real. That future is achievable. But it starts with the landowners. First. Always.
𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐉𝐈 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐁𝐄𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄
Four submarine cables meeting at one stretch of Fijian coastline is not luck. It is geography. Fiji already sits at a digital crossroads the entire Pacific depends on a position most nations spend billions trying to engineer and could never buy.
Get the sequence right and Natadola is only the beginning. A cable landing station becomes a regional ICT hub. A regional ICT hub attracts colocation capacity, disaster-recovery infrastructure for Australian and New Zealand banks, backup systems for the whole Pacific rim. Jobs that don’t disappear when a project ends. Revenue that compounds instead of a one-time premium.
Fiji does not have to choose between becoming a digital hub and protecting its landowners. That is the false choice we have been sold for sixty years. The nations that got digital infrastructure right, the UAE, Singapore did not get there by sidelining the people whose land it sits on. They got there by making them owners of the outcome.
Our landowners are not an obstacle to Fiji becoming the Pacific’s digital gateway. They are the custodians who make it possible. The Vanua is not something development has to work around. It is the foundation development has to be built on.
Respect the custodians of the land, and the land itself becomes Fiji’s greatest economic asset, not despite the Vanua, but because of it. That is the Fiji I want my children, and every landowner’s children, to inherit.
𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐃𝐎 𝐖𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐏 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐍 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆? 𝐁𝐔𝐈𝐋𝐃 𝐀 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐄𝐂𝐇𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐏𝐄𝐑.
A properly staffed National Planning Development Authority would have stopped the Vuda waste-to-energy project long before it ever reached EIA stage. Not through a legal battle. Not through a technical objection filed after money had already been committed. Through a technical planning review, at the very front of the process, by people qualified to ask whether that development belonged on that land at all.
That is the difference between real National Planning and Development and what Fiji currently runs on. Right now, project sequencing decisions are effectively being made by a small circle of economists and policy advisors, weighing investment announcements and fiscal targets.
Economists can tell you what a deal is worth. They cannot tell you whether a grid can carry the load, whether a water table can sustain the cooling demand, or whether a coastline can absorb the footprint for twenty five years. That takes engineers. Planners. Quantity surveyors. People who read infrastructure, not spreadsheets.
Look at how developed nations actually do this.
Delivery authorities staffed by technical professionals, with the credentials to sit across the table from a Google, a sovereign fund or a multinational developer as equals, not supplicants, and to negotiate terms that protect the nation’s long term position rather than just close the deal fastest. That is what actually protects sovereign assets for our children’s future. Not goodwill. Not hope. Technical people, in the room, before the ink dries.
That is how we stop the pattern. Not another ministry. Not another consultation. A gatekeeper with real engineering and planning authority, sequencing development before any lease is signed, so the next Momi, the next Monasavu, the next Vuda, the next Malomalo never gets the chance to happen, because our children’s sovereign assets were protected at the planning table, not fought for in court twenty years later.
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐄 𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐏𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐂 𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐒. 𝐓𝐎𝐃𝐀𝐘.
Was an EIA conducted for this facility? If yes where is the public record? If no why not?
How did a tourism lease become the legal vehicle for a Google ICT Data Centre without the landowners knowing?
Why does Fiji own the land but Google own the asset?
And why were the landowners of Malomalo the last people to know what was being built on their ancestral land and in their sea?
Those questions deserve honest public answers. Not tomorrow. Today.
𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐬𝐚𝐯𝐮 𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐨𝐦𝐢. 𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐕𝐮𝐝𝐚 𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐨. 𝐃𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬. 𝐒𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦. 𝐒𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞.
𝐈𝐧 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭.
𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐚 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐩𝐮𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭. 𝐀𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬. 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.
Respecting the Vanua first is not a sentiment. It is the only development model that works. The only model that creates lasting wealth for our communities. The only model that protects our environment for future generations.
Put our landowners first. And watch what this country becomes.
For our landowners. For our investors. For our children. For Fiji.
𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐕𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚.
𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭. 𝐀𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬.
𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐋𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞.
𝐎𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐭. 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞.
𝐅𝐢𝐱 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭.
𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐅𝐢𝐣𝐢 𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬.
𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐄𝐥𝐬𝐞 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰.
I think this is the longest comment ever posted here. But it is an intriguing read and a clear sign that the minorities are irrelevant to some of the power plays currently being played out largely away from public view.
iTaukei are being screwed by their own people in such instances and the sooner they realise this, the sooner the rest of us will be free from being targeted as scapegoats.
Greed, personal ambition and provincial rivalry among their fellow iTaukei are the biggest threats to indigenous Fijians as a whole, not the kai Idia and other minorities.
The promise of one nation working together for the common good is being destroyed from within to serve the purposes of an iTaukei elite. And that is a tragedy for Fiji and future generations. Exploited by their own people and steadily impoverished when Fiji could have been a beacon for the developing world if selfishness hadn’t got in the way of nation building.
The minorities have always been irrelevant and, a convenient scapegoat.
The great council of thieves f***s us over and we bend over for more.