The COVID-19 Risk Mitigation Taskforce will only allow new investment ventures into the country if the risks to public health are low, says Ministry of Health permanent secretary Dr James Fong.

While speaking at the 22nd Attorney-General’s Conference in Natadola on Saturday, he reiterated the importance of maintaining strict guidelines to ensure low risks to the community.

“When I mentioned that we set up the COVID-19 Risk Mitigation Taskforce, one of the things that we look at when we are mitigating the risks is to ensure that the financial and economic benefit that we get is worth the effort that we put in in mitigating that risk,” said Dr Fong.

“This is why many of the ventures fail.

“We have the ability to mitigate the risk, but the problem is mitigating risk costs us a lot of money.

“So every time someone comes up with an economic recovery initiative when we measure and it seems like we will be spending an equal amount of money for the benefit that we are going to get, then we will not accept that initiative.

“So when people or investors say that the latter is all we need, I wish it was that simple.”

Dr Fong was responding to a query from a legal practitioner who questioned the challenges a potential investor was facing in trying to get approval from the taskforce.