An important message from PASAI Chief Executive - Mr Tiofilusi Tiueti

All our countries and our people are affected by this calamity. Each of our countries has put out strict preventive measures to protect and counter the spread of the coronavirus. PASAI also acknowledge and grateful for the ongoing support from your respective organisations to Pacific countries to strengthen their internal resources to fight against this pandemic.

As you may be aware, on Tuesday, 23 March 2020, New Zealand went into alert level 3 and moving to alert level 4 in 48 hours. This means a national lockdown by today, Wednesday 24 March 2020 for four (4) weeks, and non-essential services are to work from home. The four (4) weeks lockdown could be longer so we will keep you updated as things evolve.

Because of that, the PASAI Secretariat office lockdown was effective from the close of business yesterday, Tuesday 24 March 2020. PASAI staff are now working from home and will be for the next four weeks or until the lockdown period is lifted. However, please note that we are still working as usual and accessible to any of our staff can still be made via work emails, telecon (to our mobile numbers), skype etc.  Please don’t call the office telephone number as there is no one at the office to answer your call.   

The lockdown also means that the delivery of some of our planned programs will be deferred/delayed to a future period, which we will confirm once we have some degree of certainty. Meanwhile, PASAI is taking this as an opportunity to explore innovative ways to deliver our programs, liaise with SAIs to prioritise programs, and strengthen resources in the Secretariat to be able to respond to SAI needs at times of adversity, as we are now.  

To ensure we continue planning, each of the PASAI Directors continued to liaise with the member SAIs to obtain updated information on the SAI situation in terms of ability to interact on a program especially if part of that program is to be delivered online/remotely.

We understand that it is a fluid situation and evolves rapidly day by day. However, we will continue to find ways to continue delivering programs to meet SAI needs and will come out stronger.

Should you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact me at tiofilusi.tiueti@pasai.org.

We wish that you all continue to stay safe during these uncertain times.

The PASAI Secretariat Team

25 March 2020