Minister for Local Government, Housing, and Community Development Premila Kumar says if they start charging everyone a garbage fee through a proper system where the garbage fee is either attached to the water bill or electricity bill, then there is no escape and people have to pay.
Kumar says she thinks this is the way forward for all municipal councils.
There are also noticeable piles of rubbish in Nasinu in recent weeks, and Kumar says they are in talks with other municipal councils such as Suva, Nasinu, Lami, and Nausori on how they can have a Waste Collection Service for the Central Division.
Kumar says they have used Suva City Council staff to go out in Nasinu to analyse and do diagnostic work and come back with a plan on how they can do garbage collection efficiently.
She says they want a team that will include enforcement officers as well as rate collection team.
Kumar says they will come up with how big the team should be, what kind of resources do they need, and what would be the cost.
She adds once they come up with the plan, they will roll it out.
Kumar says they have been doing a lot of brainstorming recently and are using the Suva City Council as a model municipal council based on how they manage garbage collection and the municipality.
The Nasinu Town Council has total rate arrears of $11.3 million.
Kumar says last year only 40% of Nasinu ratepayers paid their rates and this year they have seen only 35% pay their rates.
She says they are spending a lot of time and money in chasing up ratepayers to pay their rates.
Kumar says there are ratepayers in Nasinu who simply don't pay their rates and have accepted that as a norm.
