Board members of companies will be appointed on merit and not on gender alone.

That was the message from the Minister for Public Entities to heads of the various corporate Government entities at a workshop dealing with Corporate Governance.

Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum replied to questions raised as to why there was not much presence of women in Company Boards.

He stressed that people are not appointed for the sake that they were women however the best of the best will be appointed.

He also said that people are getting obsessed with ethnicity and gender and this was not good.

Sayed-Khaiyum said that government continues to face the issue of appointing well qualified people due to the travel sanctions placed on Fiji, however government would always look for the best person suited for the job and not necessarily a woman.

Meanwhile, workshop co-ordinator and former judge Nazaat Shameem stressed that when appointing board members, there needs to be a variety of people chosen, as this would mean diversity and in the end more productivity.

Shameem referred to National Bank of Fiji scam where taxpayers lost in excess of FJ$200 million.

She said that in such cases, the Board members were at fault as they did not do anything to stop the fraud.