7 females among 23 sign contracts

TWENTY-three senior government officers, including seven females, yesterday formalised their appointments with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade after acting on the contract positions since last year.
Two deputy secretaries, five divisional heads and 16 directors signed their contracts.
The seven women were deputy secretary (policy) Lucy Bogari, director-general trade Jacinta Warakai-Manua, director trade negotiations Magdalene Moi-he, World Trade Organisation branch director Seline Leo-Lohia, visits and accreditation director Barbara Mimino, privileges and immunities director Morivetta Eka and properties and communications director Rava Chapman.
Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Michael Maue said the officers would serve for three years after a three-month probation period.
Maue, who signed the contracts, extended his congratulations to the appointees and warned that with the delegation of power came a lot of responsibility.
“I want to go back to the glory days where we did things on time and did them professionally.
“I want to see you take the lead in guiding the department to achieve such a change,” he added.
“Let us change our attitude of coming to work late and being lazy.
“I want to see some improvement in work commitments, in your attendance and delivery.
“Let us use this occasion to change by putting a good day’s job to earn a honest salary,” Maue said.
The appointments bring to 126 the total staff strength, of which 94 work in PNG and 32 are serving in PNG missions around the globe.
“We have a departmental ceiling of 256 staff and we will recruit more personnel to fill in the remaining 130 vacancies,” Maue said.