30th August, 2019 Dr Viliami Konifelenisi Fifita of Felemea and Kotu, Ha’apai has been re-appointed as the Government Statistician for the Statistics Department following an official decision made by the Public Service Commission with effect from the date of signing of the Chief Executive Officer contract (i.e. 27 August, 2019) for a period of three (3) years.
As Government Statistician, Dr Fifita has the responsibility of ensuring that high quality statistics are provided on a timely basis to aid evidence-based decision making and provide advice and assistance to Government Ministries in relation to statistics.
Dr Fifita holds a Doctor of Philosophy (2017) from the University of Bristol, United Kingdom and a Master of Applied Statistics (2008) from the Australian National University, Australia. He also attained a Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Pure Mathematics (2003) from Waikato University, New Zealand and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Physics (1995) from the University of the South Pacific, Fiji.
His career in the Public Service began in 1996 when he was appointed as an Assistant Teacher in the then Ministry of Education. Since then, he has taken over senior positions in the Ministry including Senior Lecturer prior to his transfer and promotion to the position of Assistant Government Statistician at the then Statistics Department in 2004. Dr Fifita was also a part time lecturer at the University of the South Pacific from 1997 to 2006 and also at the Tonga Institute for Higher Education for the Diploma in Information System and Diploma in Computer Science programs from 1999 to 2007.
During Dr Fifita’s tenure as Assistant Government Statistician at the Statistics Department he assisted the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and some Pacific Islands in designing poverty modules, manuals, discussion papers on advantages of Consensual Approach (CA) to poverty measurement and provide training for their various surveys which included Tonga Demographic Health Survey (DHS) 2012, Tonga Household Income Expenditure Survey (HIES) 2015, Solomon Islands DHS 2015, Tuvalu HIES 2015 and Fiji Labour Force Survey (LFS) 2015.
Dr Fifita has sat on various professional committees namely the TVET programs under the then Ministry of Training, Employment, Youth and Sports as a short-term Technical Advisor in 2011 and also a Consultant for UNICEF in the same year. He is currently a member of the Pacific Statistics Standing Committee, Board of Directors of the TNQAB and also the Deputy Chair of the Pacific Statistics Method Board. Since 2016, Dr Fifita has been providing advisory and technical assistance on multi-dimensional poverty assessment to countries in the Pacific including Tonga, Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Kiribati and Uganda and may likely be extended to other Pacific Islands and the African Region.
The Public Service Commission congratulates Dr Viliami Konifelenisi Fifita on his re-appointment as the Government Statistician for the Statistics Department and looks forward to his continued contributions to the Government of Tonga.
ENDS
Issued by the: Office of the Public Service Commission