Malaita agrees to meet PS Fa’abasua’s salary if the government fires him

The Malaita Provincial Government has agreed to keep its Provincial Secretary at its own cost if he were to be sacked by the Central Government.

Malaita Provincial Secretary Fredrick Fa’abasua has received his letter of recall from the Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening – his employer— but he has written back to the Central Government for an explanation for his recall.

An official from the Office of the Premier of Malaita told SBMOnline that PS Fa’abasua has given the government seven days to reply.

The official says the PS is reluctant to leave his position in Malaita and if the government has decided to terminate him, then Malaita is province is prepared to pay for his salary as their fulltime PS.

The Malaita Provincial Executive today agreed to hire Fa’abasua as its PS in the event the government sacks him.

The province in a statement today says there were no bases for the “recall” in the contract of Fa’abasua and there were no clear reasons been given.

The Malaita Provincial Government claims that the logging industry was behind this call— because of the effectiveness of PS Fa’abasua in stopping illegal logging operations exporting logs to China.