Page 14 - IB March 2021

Energy Energy

MOUNTAINS OF HYDRO TROUBLE

LANDOWNERS’ BID TO BUILD HYDRO PLANT

By Samisoni Pareti EFL whether they were indeed sent by the PM, they became
afraid and said the PM didn’t send them, but it was their CEO,
Mountain tribes in Fiji are thwarting plans by the country’s Hasmukh Patel,’ explains a post on the community’s social
power monopoly to build a multi-million hydropower plant. media page, showing photos of the police officers and their
The people of Nubu and Cawanisa say Energy Fiji Limited vehicles.
(EFL) only has itself to blame for the derailment of its hydro Verified with the Fiji Police Force headquarters, its me-
project because of the pitiful rental it has paid them in the dia spokesperson Ana Naisoro confirmed the involvement of
past. their Special Response Team but ignored our questions about
On hold is the Qaliwana Hydro Scheme, which EFL has whether the officers were armed.
earmarked as its fifth hydropower plant, in the centre of Viti “The visit was part of normal operations and visitations
Levu, Fiji’s main island. conducted by the Special Response team where they check on
Qaliwana is located in the same region as the main Mona- important infrastructure and at the same time conduct visita-
savu Hydro Scheme, which was commissioned in 1983 and tions to nearby villages,” was Naisoro’s one-line reply.
has an 80 MW capacity. Adjacent Wainisavulevu Weir was Documents made available to the magazine showed that the
constructed in 1984, and another hydro plant, the Nadarivatu tribes have made representation to the office of Fiji’s Prime
Hydro Scheme came online in September 2012. The fourth Minister Frank Bainimarama. They have a copy of Bainimara-
hydropower at Nagado has been shut down since 2016 due to ma’s response, in which he acknowledged and supported the
“low water pressure.” move by the landowners to form their own power company.
Landowners have refused to lease EFL the 2700 acres of A copy of the Prime Minister’s letter has been shown to
land needed for the Qaliwana project. Instead, they have government offices particularly on the west coast of Viti Levu,
registered an independent power producer (IPP) company including the Commissioner Western and heads of Provincial
and told EFL that their IPP, with the support of international Councils.
partners, intends to construct the hydro plant themselves. This letter was also shown to the two teams of police offi-
They say EFL will then be invited to purchase the power cers that had visited landowners in Monasavu and Nadarivatu.
from them. In a video interview that was made available to Islands
The Fiji government is the majority owner of EFL, and while Business, a spokesman for the tribes of Nubu and Cawanisa,
its CEO Hasmukh Patel is refusing to respond to written ques- Peni Nagata revealed that they had secured the services of
tions this magazine had sent to his office, Islands Business international law firm, Clyde & Co to represent them.
knows that the public utility is unimpressed with the landown- He said the three landowning units (mataqali) of Nabuto,
ers’ intentions. Navinoti and Naqereqere have formed a private company and
Eyewitnesses in Nubu and Cawanisa tell the magazine that registered it by the name of Nubucokocoko Holdings Trust.
on at least two occasions, the Fiji Police’s Special Response “Members of the mataqali have started their fundraising
Team, dressed in full riot gear, visited their villages to warn drive as we want to lease the hydropower plant site, and pay
them against interfering with the EFL plans. for a feasibility study,” said Nagata.
On their first visit in October last year, landowners claimed At least one of them, mataqali Navinoti is hoping to use the
they saw weapons in the police vehicles. Photos sent to investment component of its Monasavu Hydro compensation
Islands Business showed four Police white four-wheel drive money as equity in Nubucokocoko Holdings.
trucks plus a blue unmarked vehicle. The magazine also saw number crunching done by Nubuco-
‘EFL brought 20 police officers with three guns to seize kocoko Holdings about the viability of the proposed hydro-
our land, claiming that they were sent by the Prime Minister. power plant. Working on the electricity purchasing rate of 33
But when we asked Luke Vauvau and Etuate Mataitini from cents per KW that, according to the landowners’ company was

14 Islands Business, March 2021