Two significant promotions have been announced at the country’s largest listed entity on the South Pacific Stock Exchange.
Attar Singh now leads the Pacific’s main telecommunications holdings company, Amalgamated Telecom Holdings (ATH), as chairman. Tanya Waqanika has been elevated to the position of deputy chairperson of the ATH board.
Mr. Attar Singh, who was a board member at ATH prior to his recent promotion, replaces Dakshesh Patel, who was acting chairman. Mr. Singh has held various roles as a director or chairman on several boards. He was the general secretary of the Council of Trade Unions before contesting the national elections in 2018 on a National Federation Party ticket. At that time, he stated he would not return to union work due to legal restrictions.
Mr. Singh currently serves as the assistant national secretary for the Fiji Trades Union Congress (FTUC) and general secretary for the Fiji Longshoremen and Staff Association. He is also the industrial relations advisor to the National Union of Municipal Workers and Fiji Airlines Pilots Association. Additionally, he is a member of the National Occupational Safety & Health Advisory and the Employment Relations Advisory boards.
His extensive career includes a long tenure as the General Secretary of the Fiji Islands Council of Trade Unions for over 15 years and as President of the Fiji Cane Growers Association for 17 years. Mr. Singh has also held international union positions, serving on the Asia Pacific Executive Board (Singapore), Uni Global Union (Geneva), and the International Transport Workers Federation.
Mr. Singh began his professional career as an aircraft engineer in 1978. He obtained his private pilot’s license in New Zealand in 1980 and an aircraft maintenance engineer’s license in 1983 from the Civil Aviation Authority of Fiji before moving into industrial relations in 1993, where he championed employee rights and welfare.
Amalgamated Telecom Holdings has business interests in Kiribati, Vanuatu, American Samoa, Samoa, Cook Islands, and Papua New Guinea.
Meanwhile, Ms. Waqanika, a former lawyer for Fiji Television, contested the last national election on a SODELPA ticket.