Mara shuffles

his ministers

Prime minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, in a minor cabinet reshuffle, has created a new Ministry of Information.

The former education minister. Dr Ahmed Ali, an academic and former USP lecturer, has taken up the new portfolio.

The education job has been taken over by Mr Filipe Bole, the former minister without portfolio.

Announcing the changes, Ratu Mara also announced the retirement of foreign minister, Mr Semefa Fikibou.

Ali had been education minister since he was elected to a safe Alliance seat as the prime minister’s running mate in 1982. Outlining his reasons for creating the new ministry the prime minister said the decision was made “in view of the proposed introduction of television, the need to expand the national video centre and the implementation of the objectives of Development Plan Nine.”

Broadcasting and information previously came under the prime minister s department. He has now assumed responsibility for foreign afairs as well.

Bole is also a former educationist and had served as permanent secretary at the education department for

several years before becoming Fiji’s permanent representative at the UN in New York in 1980.

He was director of the Hawaii based Pacific Islands Development Program before entering politics and parliament in a by-election last year.

Ratu Mara said Bole would bring to the education portfolio a “wealth of ability and experience.”

In a radio interview shortly after his appointment as information minister AJi said his priority would be to establish clear lines of communica tion between the government, the people and the media.

He said he believed in press free dom but with freedom came responsibility. He would strive to see that the government’s point of view was projected positively. In a deve loping country such as Fiji, he added, the rural people should not be over looked in the dissemination of news.

He said the creation of the new ministry was in keeping with the government’s policy to improve the flow of information both to and from the people to the government.

However, many political observers in Suva see the move as a strengthen ing of the government’s publicity machine in preparation for the gen eral elections next year.