Minister for Lands and Mineral Resources, Honourable Ashneel Sudhakar handed over the fifth royalty pay-out for gold and silver mined by the Vatukoula Gold Mines Ltd under Nasomo Trust land. The pay-out was made to 123 Nasomo landowners in Vatukoula at the Community hall on the 25th of October, 2019.

“Today’s pay-out is the highest pay-out to date whereby a total of $75,179.86 will be equitably distributed amongst 123 Trust members covering the period from June to August 2019,” Hon. Minister said.

“This pay-out is aligned to section five (5) - Fair share of royalties of the Fair Share of Mineral Royalties Act 2018 which states that 80% of mineral royalties be given to landowning units and 20% of the royalty be retained by the State,” he said.

To date, the Government has paid out a total of approximately $308,000 to the Nasomo Landowners Trust.

Landowning units in Fiji whose land is exploited for mineral extraction or mining have received a total of approximately $4.4 million.

Hon. Minister Sudhakar acknowledged Vatukoula Gold Mines Limited, noting that as long as they mined, Nasomo Trust members would continue to receive a fair share of gold and silver royalties, based on the saleable material extracted from the land.