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Fiji’s Housing Authority is owed some $20 million from customers defaulting on their loan repayments, said the company’s chief executive officer Alipate Naiorosui.
But he has taken a sympathetic stand, saying that the company was willing to work things out with its customers as it recognized that economic times were difficult at the moment.
“The performance of Housing Authority has always been a great challenge because much of our work focuses on social activities to assist the poor and low income earners, so we don’t make much profit.
“But what I can say is that in the last five years, we really improved the business performance, we’ve shown some profitability and we’ve continued to do so,” Naiorosui told Fiji Live.
“In the last year in particular, we have been hit, just like other businesses in Fiji. One of the greatest impacts of difficult times for us now is the higher rate of default payments which is about 15 per cent of our total loans portfolio of around $145 million.
“That translates to around $20 million – of hard core arrears that we have. So you might see some mortgagee sales but, you know, we are open to people who want to come and talk. It’s difficult times that we’re facing. Our objective is to provide homes, not to de-house or take away homes.”
Housing Authority celebrated its 50th year of operation Friday, in a low key affair that saw the opening of its refurbished office building in Valelevu, outside Suva.
Naiorosui said the company was working towards bringing down its rate of arrears to at least 10 per cent of total loans portfolio and it was doing this by developing some products to try and assist their customers facing financial hardship.
“We try to work within the boundaries of our policies and we’ve go a very good board that has supported us and a very good minister to support us in that respect,” he added.
Housing Authority is awaiting the approval of a $70 million government-guaranteed loan from China’s Export/Import Bank, whose officials are due in Fiji next month for matters related to the loan application.
Naiorosui said if approved, the loan will help develop properties to enable Housing Authority to deliver 5000 new homes to low and middle income earners.
