Landowners Receive $6 Million Bonus Pine Payment From PM
Twenty landowners received a bonus payment of $6 million from Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama during the Fiji Pine Limited lease security bonus payment at the Tropik Wood Drasa mill complex in Lautoka on Friday. These are landowners of 12 tribes (yavusa) from Nabou, Lololo, Ra and Nadi.
Mr Bainimarama said the latest bonus payment added to the tens of millions of dollars that have been paid to landowners since Fiji Pine Limited introduced lease security bonuses.
He confirmed that $36.5 million in dividend payments were made to landowners over nine consecutive years.
“These nine straight years of dividend payments are a direct result of the merit-based managerial excellence that has produced Fiji Pine’s commercial success,” he said.
“Having the right people, in the right positions, has delivered tremendous results.”
He said Fiji Pine Limited carried out another series of major reforms at the Fiji Pine Trust Limited to root out corruption and abuse including from the Forest Base Companies and Forest Base Trusts.
“We’ve cleaned things up at the Trust in direct and exhaustive consultations with landowners. The Trust is more transparent and it serves landowners equally, in accordance with the law, without playing favourites,” Mr Bainimarama said.
“No one can bulldoze their way to extra advantage simply because of their status. Those days are over, and they will never come back, so long as we are your Government.”
He said since the introduction of the Landowner Community Development Fund last year, training programmes, water projects, solar installations, and other development initiatives in landowning communities had been funded with Kubulau villages being the latest to receive solar power.
Record breaking dividends
In addition to record-breaking dividend payments, Fiji Pine Limited has paid fair and reliable returns to landowners.
A lease premium of $20 per hectare is paid at the time of leasing land, $14 is paid per hectare in annual rent, and stumpage of 12 per cent is paid when trees are harvested in addition to benefits through the Landowner Community Development Fund and operational costs that Fiji Pine covers itself. Fiji Pine Group of Companies director, Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, said it had taken 11 years of hard work by those in the Pine Industry to turn it around after mismanagement and abuse brought the industry to its knees in 2010.
He said the Pine Industry was facing forest sustainability issues due to lack of or no planting carried out in the past.
“What happened around 15 to 20 years ago is now impacting us substantially. To run Drasa sawmill we are bringing saw logs all the way from Seaqaqa at substantial costs,” he said.
He said Fiji Pine Limited achieved historical record operating profits of $41.88million in the 2021 financial year.
Since last year the Fiji Pine Group had taken its forest operations to another level by planting a record 4,200 hectares of pine.