56 iTaukei landowners and landowning groups will share from $500,000 that has been allocated for the 2019 SEED Fund Grants through the iTaukei Land Trust Board.

While issuing the grants, Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama told the recipients there are critics out there who will lie and say these seed-funding grants are handouts or freebies adding when they say that, they think they are insulting the government.

Bainimarama told the recipients the critics are really insulting the landowners and landowning units, the hard-working people who want to make the most out of this opportunity.

The Prime Minister says when those critics make those claims, what they are really saying is that they don’t believe the landowners and landowning units ideas merit investment.

Bainimarama says that is not his government’s mentality adding they believe in the landowners and landowning units and that is why they are funding their ventures.

Bainimarama says progress only counts when every Fijian sees the benefits, not only the elites, not only those from certain provinces, with certain parents and with certain friends in high places.

He told the recipients that none of them are sitting there because they knew the right people adding they are sitting there because they brought a bold idea to the table, they saw an opportunity, and the TLTB is giving them means to turn their ambition into a livelihood.

The money for these grants come from the profit that made by TLTB.

Bainimarama says in addition to this, his Government is also funding the subdivision of iTaukei land to help realise bigger profit margins and community-wide gains directly to landowning units and wider community gains, creating economic opportunities for all Fijians.