Lew heads Air Vanuatu Board
January 23, 2024 10:22 pm | Posted in Business News | Share now TwitterFacebook
By Anita Roberts.
A new board for the Air Vanuatu appointed following the formation of the Government led by Charlot Salwai is chaired by businessman Alain Lew.
This was confirmed by the Minister of Finance, John Salong, as one of the shareholding ministers and the minister responsible for State-owned Enterprises (SoEs).
Two other businessmen, Terry Bourgeois and Martin Cheng, are also members of the board and a government official, the Director General (DG) of the Ministry of Tourism, Jimmy Rantes.
They represented the shareholding ministries being the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the Ministry of Finance and Economic Management (MoFEM), the Ministry of Infrastructure and Public Utilities (MIPU) and the Ministry of Tourism.
This is not the first time for Chairman Lew to chair the board of a SoE, he was a former chairman of Airports Vanuatu Limited (AVL) and the Vanuatu National Provident Fund (VNPF).
Minister Salong confirmed that having most of the board members from the private sector is part of the government’s vision to remove political interference from the board and having it run by technical people.
He said the board members were appointed the next month after the Salwai Government was formed. They have held their first meetings last year.
They replaced the former board headed by Moana Kalosil formed under the former Prime Minister Sato Kilman. Former board members include Benjamin Shing as the representative from the Ministry of Finance, Dunstan Hilton, Alexandre Perret and Herbert Joel Duvu as representatives of the private sector, including lawyer Nigel Morrison.
The government has been trying to address challenges at the national airline faced due to management issues resulting in poor performance and financial in stability, year after year.
Just before being ousted from power on August last year, the head of the Government announced the recruitment of a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to steer the airline after the term of the former CEO Atu Finau ended.
Until today, there has not been a formal announcement of the CEO.
The government also announced plans to purchase a new aircraft and the possibility of Air Vanuatu entering into a leasing arrangement for two Boeings, an ATR and twin otter aircrafts.
Vanuatu has experienced a lot of political instability since last year, with three Prime Ministers in a month. Despite the political changes, Air Vanuatu remains a priority to address.
