Education CEO bids farewell to Ministry

By Talaia Mika

APIA, SAMOA – 22 FEBRUARY 2022: Tears flowed as the Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture; Afamasaga Dr. Karoline Afamasaga Fuatai said her goodbyes to the staff and the education sector today.

Her three year contract ended 8th of this month (February) but was extended to settle some management procedures in the education sector due to changes brought by the Covid-19 lockdown.

A normal timeframe for an extension of contract for CEOs is six months however; Afamasaga’s extension of contract has been discontinued.

She recently had a fallout with Cabinet after she put out a public notice that contradicted the announcement by the Prime Minister to reopen all schools on 14th February after Samoa went back to Covid Alert Level One after a two weeks lockdown.

MESC Minister, Seuula Ioane played down the contradiction as a mix up as the notice signed by Afamasaga was based on the first PK (Cabinet Paper) before the new decision (PK) was delivered.

However, it did not go down well with the Minister of Agriculture when asked by the media and he challenged the CEO to resign if she does not wish to follow the announcements by the Prime Minister.

Afamasaga was reappointed in January 2019 in her second term as CEO.

Several other CEOS employment contracts are up and interviews have already been done but the final decisions have yet to be announced.

Since moving into office in the middle of last year, the FAST Government has been facing the challenge of working with CEOS and senior staff appointed by the previous Government where the lines of professionalism and political allegiances have somewhat been distorted.