MISSA mourns passing of Mrs. Saeko Shoniber

The Administration lost one of its closest supporters with the passing of Mrs. Saeko Shoniber who joined her creator on March 1, 2021. Mrs. Shoniber was the longest serving MISSA board member. She started as a member of the MISSA Board in 2000 through 2009. When the Cabinet installed a new Board in 2009, she was appointed Board Chairperson until 2017. When a new set of Board was inducted in 2017, she was reappointed as a Board Member until 2019. She also represented MISSA in a number of Prior Service Trust Fund (PSTF) annual meetings in Guam. Furthermore, she served in the Board of BOMI, MIHI and MISCo for more than a decade as one of the representatives of MISSA.

Quoting an article from WUTMI RMI, “Saeko was a woman of many talents, an honest and hard working in all the jobs she held.” Her lack of a formal college education did not prevent her from learning accounting and fixing financial records and bank reconciliations that were in total disarray. As an accountant and consultant of KAJUR, Mrs. Shoniber was instrumental in the final settlement of KAJUR’s long outstanding debts with MISSA. She worked in the RMI Government as Assistant Secretary of Finance in the early 1990s and was promoted to Secretary of Finance a few years later. As financial consultant of state owned enterprises like MEC and MWSC, and Board member of the Social Security System for almost 2 decades, she helped MISSA build a strong liaison with past Administrations, Nitijela and Cabinet, and became one of the strongest proponents of the MISSA reform law that was passed by the Nitijela in 2017.