Transcript
KALAFI MOALA: I was quite shocked in fact to have read it, simply because that is just another excuse that the Prime Minister has come up with, due to the fact that his government has been a non-performer over the last two years and that is most unfortunate. The reason why I say that is because it doesn't make sense about the CEOs and about the prominent people in government from the different ministries, because he does have a tremendous influence in the appointments of these guys. So the question that comes to my mind is that, why after appointing those people to those positions as CEOs and as heads of the different departments and even the appointment of the ministers to his Cabinet, he is now coming and blaming them for his non-performance? To me, it is just another excuse again from the Prime Minister for his own incompetence and his own non-performance.
JAMIE TAHANA: Okay, so how does the appointment process work? Mr Pohiva is saying that the appointments of CEOs are done by the Public Service Commission and [police] Commissioners and the Attorney-General by the Privy Council, and his government has no say in the process, so this isn't true is it?
KM: That is not true at all. The appointment that is made by the Prime Minister is the Cabinet and that is a most important appointment because each minister will play a key role in the appointment of their CEOs or their workers. Definitely the appointments of CEOs, formally comes in from the Public Service Commission, but the board that govern the Public Service Commission, is a board that wants to know what the minister thinks about the recommendation of who to be appointed and the prime minister also plays a key role in that. So for him to pretend that those appointments and those people have nothing to do with him and he finds himself under their rule, is just not true at all.
JT: Surely though the nobility does still have quite a say in politics and if they don't like something Mr Pohiva is doing, surely they still have some power to hamstring that?
KM: Well the influence the nobility does have is in parliament. The other thing too is that one of the nobles is a member of Pohiva's Cabinet. So of course there is all of these things but formally there is absolutely no control which comes from them. There is no control that comes from the king. Even the king's Privy Council, is basically law advising, advising him on issues, but the actual running of things, day to day, the management, the structure, everything, is run by the Prime Minister and his Cabinet. So I don't have any understanding really, of why Pohiva would blame the so-called bureaucracy for his non-performance.
