Education Chief’s contract extension terminated by Cabinet
Apia: Samoa’s outgoing Ministry of Education Sports and Culture (MESC) CEO Afamasaga Dr Karoline Afamasaga-Fuata’i has revealed that her contract extension has been terminated by the Cabinet.
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 14 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.
Fronting up to the media on Monday afternoon after farewelling Ministry staff, Afamasaga confirmed during the press conference at the MESC headquarters at Malifa that her contract has expired and her last day of work was on Monday.
According to Talamua News, her three year contract ended on the 8th of this month but was extended to settle some management procedures in the education sector due to changes brought by the COVID19 lockdown.
A normal timeframe for an extension of contract for CEOs is six months however; Afamasaga’s extension of contract has been discontinued.
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.