RDO boss unable to rate Haiveta witness

By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK
Acting Rural Development Office director Paul Sai told a leadership tribunal hearing he could not give an assessment of the work done by a former employee.
Testifying in the tribunal hearing allegations of misconduct against Gulf Governor Chris Haiveta last Friday, Mr Sai said he was unable to rate the performance of Vaia Va’i, a witness who had testified earlier.
Mr Va’i was policy and planning assistant secretary at ORD from 1999 to 2002.
“I cannot say anything because I was not with the ORD during those years in question,” he said.
Mr Sai said he was the founding ORD director when the office was established by the National Government in 1998 but resigned at the end of 1999. He returned to the ORD in 2003.
Mr Haiveta’s lawyer Rimbink Pato had insisted that Mr Sai give an assessment of Mr Va’i’s performances as he (Va’i) was the one, who, on a part-time basis, had prepared acquittal reports for the Gulf provincial support grants for the years 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002.
These were some of the years that allegations of misconduct in office were raise against Mr Haiveta.
Mr Sai did say that the general practice was that before cheques of provincial support grants or district support grants are released to MPs, all acquittals of previous projects’ expenditures had to be received by the ORD.
The tribunal, chaired by justice Timothy Hinchliffe and assisted by senior magistrates Steven Abisae and Mark Pupaka, is hearing into allegations of misconduct in office by Mr Haiveta after being referred by the Ombudsman Commission on Jan 30, 2006 to the Public Prosecutor.
The hearing will continue today at 9.30am.

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