Minster for Infrastructure Jone Usumate

Fiji withdrew the name of Inoke Kubuabola for the position of Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General, as the country did not want to put its interest first.

Minister for Infrastructure Jone Usamate has revealed this in Parliament, saying Fiji will always put the plight of the Pacific first.

Former Cook Islands Prime Minister, Henry Puna, was elected to the position.

“We are in the middle of great troubles in the Pacific now. We have climate change, we have all of these things happening around us. We have seen lot of the regional plans we wanted for the Pacific, now born to fruition, Pacific plan and all of these things, they come up and they disappear. So what Fiji push for, was to go for the most meritorious person to fill this role. That is what we wanted, every other country was pushing for its own candidate, Fiji took a principal stand. Our stand is to go for the most meritorious person and as result when other countries did not go ahead with that move, we decided to withdraw our candidate.”

The outgoing Secretary General is Papua New Guinea’s Dame Meg-Taylor.