The newly appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Samoa National Provident Fund, Lemalu Selesitina Meni is up for the challenge of taking the fund in the right direction and doing the best for Samoans.

In an exclusive interview with the Samoa Observer, Lemalu who had previously worked in various organisations within the Government said she was not hesitant to apply when this post was available for the second time. She said she didn't apply for the job when the first advertisement was run.

Asked if the current fiasco regarding the dividend payout and managers resigning affected her decision to apply for the job, she said "no".

"With this kind of public position, you need to take the good, the bad and the ugly. You have to have that strength to take everything in and at the same time to look at it in a positive way," she said. "Not everything said by the people is bad and it's telling us that we need awareness programs for our contributors.

"There's a lot out there that do not really understand what we're doing, although they're just deducting their money into their account to me as a new CEO, it's a message that is being clearly sent out by our people that we need to have more awareness for our people in order for them to understand as well as us to take into account what our members are saying and see how we can address it in a positive way rather than just shoving it onto the side.

"So to us as workers and servants to the government and to the people, we need to look at how we can address those areas through awareness programs.

"Some people have the perception that it's their money and that they can do what they want with it but to us as workers, we also need to work with them and say this is how we see their contributions and we would like to secure it for a better future for you and your children when you retire."

Lemalu started her career in the Treasury Department which is now the Ministry of Finance and worked for the Electric Power Corporation (E.P.C.) for almost 10 years where she started off as a project accountant. She was later appointed as chief accountant of the corporation and later chief internal auditor. At the EPC she took on those three roles including Acting Financial Controller.

In 1997, she was able to get a position in the SPREP as a project accountant and after three years there, she applied and got the job as manager of finance at S.N.P.F.

During that period, she was the Deputy C.E.O for Corporate Services in the fund in 2008 and then she applied for a position in Suva, Fiji with SPREP where she worked for three years.

She came back and worked as an internal auditor for SPREP from 2012 until 2019. She had taken voluntary retirement for four years serving the community and took up farming.

She also looked after the CSSPE project for the Samoa Federated Farmers Organisation.

Despite the early announcement by Minister, Mulipola Anarosa Molioo of her appointment, Lemalu had just received her warrant of appointment last week and will officially start on Monday as the new C.E.O. of the Fund.