Transcript
LOPETI SENITULI: Primarily because of the fact that she has been charged with defrauding the government in relation to the institute that she and her husband previously ran. Of course the charges had been filed but the Honourable Prime Minister had given her the opportunity to resign voluntarily before being forced to make the decision to ask His Majesty to revoke her appointment as Minister for Internal Affairs.
DON WISEMAN: Yet she hasn't been convicted has she?
LS: Yes of course. Of course she is innocent until she is proven guilty by the court of law and we respect that. At the same time, the charges against her are quite serious and the honourable thing that the prime minister had tried to convince her to do was to voluntarily resign so that if the court of law were to decide that if she were innocent in the end then she could come back into Cabinet. As I said, she refused to do that and now the prime minister has decided that he would have to sack her.
DW: Now this new administration of Mr Pohiva's is just three months old and what is that, three firings already?
LS: Just two, not three.
DW: It's not a good look though is it?
LS: Not if you consider the reasons why those decisions were made, I think they were the appropriate decisions to be made.
DW: Is it a sign that there's not enough people with the qualities to be cabinet ministers among the group of politicians associated with the democratic party?
LS: That's an open question. On a personal level I believe that there are people with the appropriate skills and qualifications within the prime minister's team that can make good ministers. At the same time there are people within parliament who are capable of being appointed ministers. At the same time of course the prime minister has the, at his discretion to appoint others from outside of parliament to his cabinet.
