Foreign diplomat appointments exhaustive process

By MATTHEW VARI

Sunday, April 10, 2016 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)

RESPONDING to queries raised by West New Britain Governor, Sasindran Muthuvel, in parliament on the appointment of new foreign diplomats to replace current long-serving representatives overseas - Minister for Foreign Affairs and Immigration Rimbink Pato said the appointment process was one that needed to be exhaustive.

He said considering the nature of their jobs as representatives of the State to ensure the best representatives would be selected to be the face of the country’s interests.

“Of course we have been making those appointments to foreign missions, be they be ambassadors, high commissioner, or counsel generals in the different missions and posts around the world is not an easy task,” the minister said.

“It requires consultation with relevant sectors of the Papua New Guinea communities, consultation with the different leaders of the coalition, interest groups, and then look at the type and quality of people to best serve the policy agenda of our country to drive the best outcomes for us.”

“It is not always because this government has failed to act, but it is because we want to be careful, to make sure that as the country increases its profile as a country and a leader we want to make sure that people we appoint to the different posts are the right people so that we will not be able to say whether we made the right decision or not.”

Pato specified the important of maintaining the country’s stronger partners such as Australia, Indonesia, USA, Great Britain, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, and the People’s Republic of China.

“This government has done what it can to drive our agenda globally and it has as you know. There have been so many visits by some of the world’s key leaders,” he pointed out.

“That is the respect, the humble and hard work put in by myself and our Prime Minister. Very soon we are going to host from the 30th of May to the 2nd of June 79 leaders of the African, Pacific, and Caribbean States.”

“That is a major achievement. Of course we had a very successful Pacific Islands Forum meet in Port Moresby. Everyone all over the world are praising us for the position we have taken globally. PNG was the first country in the world to launch its instruments on climate change in New York.”

He concluded that the country should be proud of its standing overseas by the efforts being made to put it on the map.

“Look at APEC, which is coming to PNG in 2018, representing 60% of the world’s economies and the leaders of some of the world’s most powerful countries like the United States of America.”