Islands Business - Letter from Suva: FUNNY BUSINESS BEHIND MSG’S MOST SERIOUS TOP APPOINTMENT

Laisa Taga

How fair was the appointment of the director-general of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) secretariat? Growing questions are being asked about this as details begin to leak out.

Papua New Guinea’s Rima Ravusiro, a former trade expert with the Suva-based Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, was selected by the MSG foreign ministers. He will head the new Chinese-funded secretariat in Port Vila, Vanuatu.

He was selected ahead of some very experienced candidates. They included the likes of Aivu Tauvasa, also of Papua New Guinea, and Fiji’s Sireli Koyamaibole and Sakiusa Tuisolia.

Tauvasa is now serving her last month as the Pacific Islands Forum trade commissioner based in Sydney and was regarded as a leading candidate.

The director-general position had been a closely-guarded secret. The selection panel had travelled to all the MSG countries to interview the applicants. The position carries with it a basic starting salary of US$90,000.

The MSG seat of power... in Port Vila, Vanuatu.

MSG sources say there are concerns regarding the selection process. One MSG official said he was disappointed at the way the interview process was carried out.

This official, speaking on condition of not being named because of his own position, said: “What kind of bull is this where you require candidates to be at their home countries to be interviewed?

“The interview should have been conducted at the seat of the MSG which is Port Vila, rather than having the selection panel flying all over the MSG countries to interview candidates. I don’t see any logic in this.”

If what LETTER FROM SUVA has been told is correct, then the MSG leaders have a lot of explaining to do.

# First, the disqualification of two candidates from Fiji, Koyamaibole and Tuisolia, despite their impressive CVs. Why?

Because the selection panel was told they had withdrawn their applications. And, secondly, their applications were not endorsed by their own government.

Apparently the two have confirmed that since their interview, they did not hear anything from the MSG nor from the selection panel.

# The disqualification of two applicants because they were not in their respective countries. Fiji’s Sivia Qoro was in the USA and PNG’s Peter Donigi in Palau.

They were told that if they wanted to be interviewed, they needed to return to their respective countries. Because they were not in their countries they were ruled out. But in this day and age of modern technology, applicants can still be interviewed via teleconference, phone or internet.

# PNG’s Tauvasa—despite her impressive credentials—was brushed aside because she was a woman. LETTER FROM SUVA has also been told that because of her so-called close links to Australia, it went against her. Tauvasa completes her term in Sydney by the end of this month.

# PNG Ravusiro, who finally got the job, was not endorsed by his government.

# The MSG selection panel wrote to Tuisolia and Tauvasa to come to Port Vila for the MSG summit, where the announcement of the first director-general would be made. This was an insensitive move considering the fact that by then they knew who got the job.

LETTER FROM SUVA was told the position was open to all MSG citizens and did not require any government endorsement.

We’ve also been told that when MSG senior officials met, the selection panel who gave a report at the meeting was secretive. It did not even reveal who the candidates shortlisted were. Nor who got the job.

Another MSG official in a position to know all this told LETTER FROM SUVA: “They were just talking in general terms such as how many had applied for the job and how many were shortlisted, without even revealing their names, and so forth. It appeared like it was a sensitive matter, when it already was public knowledge that Ravusiro had got the job.”

Not, it seems, a confidence-inspiring start by a bloc which will become increasingly important in regional affairs. Let’s hope that MSG in future is more transparent and credible about the way it does business.