CBUL started in 2008 with the purpose of promoting idle land for production use, especially for agricultural purposes under the Agricultural Landlord Tenant Act (ALTA when tenants were displaced upon the expiry of their leases.
The Committee for Better Utilization of Land (CBUL) program was set up to ensure more land is accessible to all stakeholders for productive use and the landowners receive a fair and equitable return from leases over their land.
CEO Mr Tevita Kuruvakadua says that our aim is to build a strong economy because land is a factor of production.
CBUL started in 2008 with the purpose of promoting idle land for production use, especially for agricultural purposes under the Agricultural Landlord Tenant Act (ALTA when tenants were displaced upon the expiry of their leases.
While rent charged was 6% of the Unimproved Capital Value (UCV) and the iTaukei Land Trust Board (TLTB) charges 5% on average.
Mr Kuruvakadua says that at any rate this was quite low.
The Government then decided to address this inequitable rent rate and pays another 5%, so that landowner can receive 10% as rent.
Mr Kuruvakadua says that since 2008 more than $80 million has been paid out so far and last year alone $7 million was paid out by the Government through TLTB. TLTB did not charge any poundage on CBUL rent subsidy payment and 100% goes directly to the landowners.
TLTB is thankful for the Government support on this CBUL initiative and as the result, a lot of land was put back into production use and many expired leases for agricultural purposes were renewed especially for cane and dairy leases.
Landowners were also encouraged to lease their own land and some pieces of land were reverted to them for their own use.
The CBUL initiative has been carried out in collaboration between TLTB, the Ministry of iTaukei, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Rural and Maritime Development in consultation with the landowners.