PM replaces three departmental heads

By JEFFREY ELAPA

THE week-old government has started its war on corruption and unlawful appointments of departmental heads by revoking appointments of three heads of departments, The National reports.
Prime Minister Peter O'Neill told reporters yesterday that Chief Secretary Margaret Elias, Fi­nance Secretary Gabriel Yer and acting Southern Highlands provincial ad­ministrator Lawrence Ol­koben have been replaced by Manasupe Zurenuoc, Seven Gibson and Wil­liam Powi.
He said the three re­placements had vast public service expe­rien­ces as provincial ad­mi­nistrators, deputy se­cre­tary and secretary of different departments.
Zurenuoc was a former Morobe administrator, one of the longest serving administrators while Gibson was a former Milne Bay administrator.
Powi, who holds a masters in public policy and administration, was also a former deputy secretary and director of policy with the Department of Prime Minister before being ap­­pointed Southern Highlands administrator du­ring the state-of-emergency in 2006.
He will be acting for a period of three months until a permanent ap­pointment is made.
Zurenuoc was the acting chief secretary before Elias took over while Gibson was the deputy secretary operation with Fi­nance Department.
O'Neill said for good governance and im­ple­mentation of good transparent governance, the cabinet had decided to revoke the appointment of the three former heads.
He said Yer was sidelined because of on-going misuse and mismanagement of finance while the appointment of Elias and Olkoben were done contrary to the appointment processes, bypassing all public service appointment procedures.
He said his first task was to fight corruption and restore confidence in the public service machi­nery at the provincial and nation level.
Powi, when contacted, said justice had prevailed and credit should go to the government for following due processes and it would restore confidence among public servants and the public.