The Chairman of the Board of the American Samoa Telecommunications Authority (ASTCA) Alex Sene Jr. says he was not suspended for any inappropriate actions.
He told KHJ News there was no discussion by the Board of Directors to suspend him for issues that we reported in a story aired yesterday. We reported that at a recent board meeting, Acting CEO of ASTCA Chuck Leota presented financial reports showing that companies owned by Sene’s family owed a substantial amount of money to ASTCA. We also said that the authenticity and accuracy of the reports were questioned.
KHJ News adds here that we had emailed Sene and were assured that he would respond by yesterday. The chairman only responded after our story ran in our evening bulletin.
He explained, “At the board’s special board meeting on May 7th, the Agenda/Discussions included Budget Performance for the next quarter and also included migration to another billing platform. Additionally, the Billing reviews included samples of a company I am affiliated with.”
“With this, I recused myself and left so that discussions would continue with the confidence of my presence not being a factor in the reviews. Realizing the reviews might be lengthy, I decided to leave and asked the Hon. Senator Utu Sila Poasa Vice Chairman to take my place.”
Sene said, “Upon reviewing the discussion(s) that transpired between the ASTCA Management and the Board of Directors, I suggested the employees in the billing division undergo more operational and technical training before attempting the billing platform migration. Other areas recommended, as an example, were for the top management to plan and implement a file system for critical documents to be highly secured in the cloud for ease of recovery and long-term survival in the event of a new leadership transitional period and more.”
“Details of discussions between the Board of Directors and ASTCA Top management are available by contacting the Secretary of the Board of Directors, Mr. Tuni Tauiliili, and Acting CEO, Mr. Chuck Leota both copied in this email. I am also copying Samoa News for corrections to their headline story.”
Sene concluded , “I trust future news reports of ASTCA Board of Directors will originate from trustworthy and reliable sources.”
KHJ News has pointed out to him that we used the same sources we have used in previous stories without any errors.
