The National Fire Authority (NFA) farewelled its Chief Executive Officer John O’Connor during a farewell ceremony held at the NFA Headquarters in Suva today.

The NFA staff were joined by Minister For Local Government, Housing, Environment, Infrastructure and Transport Honourable Parveen Kumar Bala along with his Assistant Minister Honourable Lorna Eden, Executive Chairman Commander Francis Kean and Acting Permanent Secretary for Local Government, Housing and Environment Kolinio Bola at the farewell ceremony.

Honourable Minister Kumar who is also the Minister responsible for the NFA delivered the farewell address on behalf of the Government and commended Mr O’Connor for his strong leadership contribution as NFA CEO in the past three years.

“Mr O’Connor has diligently managed and led the Authority to achieve significant milestones in the reforms of NFA including Institutional Reforms, Human Resources Development, Construction of new Fire Stations, purchasing of new Firefighting Equipment and Emergency Rescue Equipment with the guidance of NFA Board.

The Honourable Minister while sharing his personal views highlighted thatMr O’Connor was a simple, approachable and workaholic and gets the work done on time.

“I would like to thank Mr O’Connor and his family for their unwavering support in the last three years and I would also like to acknowledge the support of NFA Board of Directors and Management that was rendered to him during his tenure as CEO,”Honourable Minister Bala said. Meanwhile, Mr O’Connor in his farewell speech thanked the Minister and the NFA Board under the leadership of Commander Francis Kean for their guidance, leadership in supporting him during his term.

Mr O’Connor also thanked the NFA staff for delivering the objectives of NFA and the support they had given him while leading the NFA. “I feel proud to lead NFA and its dynamic workforce in the last three years as part of NFA reforms. “My family and I began our journey as part of the NFA family 46 months ago and we had a dream and vision for NFA and wanted to share this dream with the NFA family.

“NFA today is a totally different organization compared to NFA in 2012. In 2012, we faced financial difficulties and today we can boast that we are doing well financially,”Mr O’Connor said.“We did not have good quality Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), today we all have our firefighting PPE and wherever it has worn out, we can walk into the stores and have it replaced.

“We had an aging fleet, today we have a modern fleet and are continuing to purchase more fire trucks and fleet, we did not have appropriate rescue and other emergency equipments, today we have such equipment and are continuing to purchase and modernize our stock in such equipments.

Mr O’Connor further elaborated major reforms including the NFA revised Legislation and the construction of new fire stations which he undertook as NFA CEO as per Government’s vision for NFA. Mr O’Connor highlighted that all the achievements of the NFA were the achievements of the Team at NFA.These achievements are your achievements and you should be proud of these achievements. He urged the workforce to continue to strive for excellence and continue to meet or exceed the expectations of the people of Fiji. He highlighted he will monitor the progress of NFA.

Mr O’Connor joins Fiji Rugby Union as its CEO on February 1.