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Forum for the Chief Executive Officers of Municipal Councils and National Fire Authority

The Chief Executive Officers (CEO) of 13 Municipal Councils and National Fire Authority (NFA) were part of the regular CEO Forum organized by the Ministry of Local Government (Ministry). This was a whole day’s event where the Councils and NFA reported on their operations, Capital Projects, Audit Implementation and Organisational Strengthening mechanisms.

“The Municipal Councils need to maintain efficiency in their work and focus on quality services with utmost diligence and professionalism. There must be a stop to a culture of mediocrity,” stated the Hon. Minister for Local Government.

The Ministry noted the remarkable progress in ensuring that more market vendors in the Municipal Markets are vaccinated. The data collated revealed that a total of 4,252 market vendors out of 5,842 in the Municipal Markets are fully vaccinated as at 26 October 2021.

The Municipal Councils were reminded to prohibit the entry of those market vendors who were not fully vaccinated after 1 November 2021. This is a legal requirement and the vendors are required to comply with the national legislations in place to ensure a safe environment for all Fijians.

In the area of organisational transformation, the Councils were urged to align the corporate culture, structure, and talent with the Council’s business strategies. The Ministry reiterated that this exercise ought to be completed and implemented immediately by the Councils. The organisational transformation is to enable the Councils and NFA to design organisation structures that ensure efficiency in service delivery.

One other fundamental area discussed at the Forum were the issues highlighted by the Office of the Auditor – General and the Public Accounts Committee pertaining to the qualification issues of the Councils and NFA.

“As the heads of the organisations, you are expected to implement the recommendations made by the Office of the Auditor General to continuously improve the governance,” added the Minister.

In addition, the CEOs were further reminded to update their annual reports and auditing of accounts. As local governments, the Councils and NFA were reminded to recommit themselves in serving the ratepayers and the public at large.

The regular CEO Forums such as this, permit the participants to share their experiences and challenges faced by them in their municipalities. This platform essentially promotes networking and allows adoption of best practices of the other Municipal Councils that ensures good governance principles.

-Ends-

[Source: Ministry of Local Government]