Thirty senior executives of Fiji Revenue and Customs Authority (FRCA) graduated on Monday from the Pacific Leadership Programme, boosting the organisation’s skills and leadership capacity.

The graduates are expected to take FRCA to its new aspirations and visions.

New Zealand High Commissioner to Fiji, Mark Ramsden was the chief guest.

Mr Ramsden encouraged the graduates; leadership is something that should be done in ones daily life.

He said accomplishing the programme was an opportunity for the graduates to reflect on what leadership meant to them. He is happy that other companies will be flowing in the same footsteps.

“I’m delighted to announce that another Pacific Leadership Programme will be delivered in 2016 in Fiji, not only for FRCA, but other organisations,” he said.

Value-training

FRCA acting chief executive officer Visvanath Das said they would continue training and developing their people.

This is one of the values of the authority, he added.

The Pacific Leadership Programme is run by New Zealand Customs and was first piloted in the Cook Islands in 2014. Fiji is the only third country after Samoa to have been privileged with his programme.

Mr Das added: “The Pacific Leadership Programme is actually only a small part of a bigger vision for the Pacific.

“In an organisation such as FRCA, it is important that we have good leaders to ensure we fulfil our role for the Government and for Fiji and without limiting ourselves for the strategic role in the region and towards the global context.”

Training

The training was delivered over eight months and also included individual and group projects. The overall programme performance was rated as excellent for relevance, efficiency and effectiveness.

One of the graduates, Vilimone Nailotei said he was excited.

After this programme, he said they would be expected to implement what they had learnt -the tools for leadership and how it would be used in the workplace.

Feedback:  aatika.patel@fijisun.com.fj