Secretary Sansan Attends the 16th Pacific Public Service Commissioner Conference
Department of Personnel Management Secretary Ms. Taies Sansan attended the 16th Pacific Public Services Commissioners conference that was held in Wellington New Zealand that took place from the 13th to the 16th of November this year.
Representing the Papua New Guinea Public Service, Secretary Sansan along with 50 other delegates from the 16 pacific countries gathered in Wellington to attend the 4-day event under the theme “In Service of Country and people: Public Service Leadership to meet the challenges of the region”.
Secretary Sansan as a board member of the Pacific Fale governance board thanked the New Zealand and Australian government for assisting PNG with the delivery of programs online and in person such the Director’s Training course, Mentoring Program, workforce planning and most importantly the assistance on the public sector reforms which saw the completion of the independent review conducted on the functions of Department Personnel Management and Public Services Commission in 2022.
She elaborated that PNG as a country in the region with a larger public service size also have the challenges that the other countries have shared in managing their public services which means that we have to find the solutions within ourselves in the region.
Secretary Sansan highlighted the need to train our public servants in the region by saying that the Somare Institute of Leadership and Governance is open to receive public servants from the region to be trained at the institution however what is needed is support from our development partners such as Australia and New Zealand to support us by funding these training programs for our public servants in Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia and the small Island States.
The interactive 4-day program included key note speeches from the Commissioner of New Zealand Public Service Commission Mr. Peter Hughes and the Commissioner of Australia Public Service Commission Dr. Gordon de Brouwer discussing the importance of integrity and ethics in the public service.
Other areas of importance that were covered during the workshop include navigating the adaptive workforce planning, transforming public service excellence, performance management and support for CEO’s and agencies to deliver and strategic communications. The pacific public services commissioner conference is an annual event that began in 2004 however due to the impacts of COVID-19 the conference had not eventuated since and this year all 16 countries in the region gathered to attend this event.