Four senior officers of the National Forest Service (NFS) each signed three-year employment contracts recently as the PNGFA implements its restructure in line with its Corporate Plan 2021-2030.
They are Chief Operating Officer (COO), Magdalene Maihua, Director Field Operations Lyall Umbo, Director Resource Planning and Development, Dambis Kaip and Director Corporate Services, Cornelius Kabagat.
Three other senior officers who will sign their contracts are Constin Bigol – Director Reforestation and Afforestation, Goodwill Amos – Director for Forest Research Institute in Lae, Morobe Province and Verolyne Daugil as the Corporate Economist.
NFS Acting Managing Director, John Mosoro thanked the COO and directors for their long service and loyalty to the organization, saying that they deserved their appointments.
Mr Mosoro who prior to heading the NFS was the Policy Advisor to Prime Minister, James Marape explained to the staff that they would have noticed delay in some decision making because since he took office on June 18, he was familiarizing himself with how things are done at the PNGFA.
“I came from the Prime Minister’s Department as Policy Advisor to the current Prime Minister. In my previous job, I was involved in a lot of what PM is now talking about – Take Back PNG. I moved across to Forestry to Take Back Forestry in line with Take Back PNG. It took about two months for me to understand and get myself around Forestry.”
Mr Mosoro added: “As a result of that, you would realize that certain issues were delayed for me to understand, especially dealing with human beings in an organization is very difficult.
“So, for the last two months, I have been trying to understand who is who, who is doing what, consultation, are they loyal or not to the current regime - the Minister, Board Chairman, and myself.”
“That was part of the delay in getting the work done. Now that I can see that management has changed and have started to focus and work, we are making a decision.
“I took the recommendation of Airswift Recruitment Company to the National Forest Board yesterday after I got the blessing of the Minister for Forests Walter Schnaubelt.”
He said: “The Board has therefore approved our revised organizational structure. This means that we will review it - not in the form that it was approved so based on that the Board also approved our senior management team.
“I am pleased to announce that the Board has agreed with me to appoint our directors in line with our corporate plan, to implement our strategic policy, going forward for Forestry.”
Mr Mosoro said it is not easy to drive the new Forest Authority forward so the responsibility will be on the directors to perform.
He said: “You have your Key Result Areas to perform and performance means we have to have quarterly assessments of all your performance and those down the line.”
Mr Mosoro said the appointment of the other directors is on hold because they have reviewed the structure.
“For Forest Enterprise, the Board has approved a State Marketing Agency called Diwai PNG Ltd. That’s why Forest Enterprise Directorate is on hold until we fine tune it and then we’ll migrate all the staff under Diwai PNG Ltd.
“We have registered it as a company and have outsourced it to a law firm to work on the constitution of the company. After we’ve done that, we’ll bring it back to the Board.”
“Because of the revised structure, some of the directors have not been appointed yet. This also goes for our board secretary and corporate lawyer. We’ve done a massive review to right-size the organization to have our core functions related to our corporate plan.”
In two weeks’ time, before September ends interviews will be conducted for the next managers. The directors who are appointed today with their contracts signed will assist to conduct interviews,” Mr Mosoro said.
In the restructure, the managing director heads, followed by the COO, which is a newly created position that Maihua has won. The directors follow this.
When accepting their appointments, they all thanked the Acting Managing Director Mr Mosoro, Minister for Forests, Walter Schnaubelt and the National Forest Board Chairman, Keith Iduhu and the Board.
“Field operations is the biggest NFS directorate with over 200 men and women throughout the country and I will try my best to provide effective field monitoring with all their help.”
“The situation that we have in Forestry in terms of funding is another issue that we will try and work around on how best to address it.”
“I cannot do all this work myself so I ask all the directors to do what is expected of you with regards to staff and finance matters in your respective directorates, to enable me to be effective in the dishing out of my duties and responsibilities,” Mr Mosoro concluded.
PNGFA has three arms namely the National Forest Board, Provincial Forest Management Committees and the NFS that is the implementing or operational arm.