80% of education allocation for salaries [1]
Saturday, June 25, 2016 - 16:04. Updated on Saturday, June 25, 2016 - 17:28.
From the House by Pesi Fonua.
The $46 million budget allocation of the Ministry of Education and Training, the biggest in Tonga's 2016-17 National Budget, stirred up the most heated debate so far in this year’s parliamentary budget debate.
Before the debate on Vote No. 16 got underway, the Chairman of the Whole House Committee reminded members that the bible reading to guide the debate was in the book of James 3:13.
To get things rolling, the Prime Minister, Hon. 'Akilisi Pohiva, who is also the Minister of Education, told the House that of his $46 million budget 80% goes on salaries ($31.8m), and the remaining 20% ($16.5m) is their working capital.
However, he said that he needed another $10m, for salaries and to meet other financial needs.
He said he was committed to improving Tonga’s education system, which he claimed has been on a low during the past 12 years.
To improve the standard of education he said that he had identified four pathways to follow and solve the problems. “We are working on it with the Educational Quality and Assessment Programme.”
[The EQAP is under the Director General’s Office of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, in Suva, Fiji].
Lord Fusitu’a told the Committee of concern by foreign diplomats over how a big portion of their budget support is spent on the salaries of civil servants and not on improving the public services as it was intended.
Budget deficit
Because of the government's reliance on budget support from foreign donors he wanted to know how government was going to address its budget deficit.
There were mixed responses from government.
The Prime Minister admitted that it was a hard question. “Deficits started from Adam and Eve,” he said. “To counter it is going to be a hard battle. We have to change the mindset.”
He said that in every school in Tonga he would like to install a billboard with these sayings "Te ke ma’u ‘a e ma ‘I he kakava ho mata – Fai ‘a e me’a ‘oku ke fiefai kia koe, fai ia ki he kakai kehe.
[Literally meaning "You will get bread from the sweat of your face," and "what you want to do for yourself, do it to others."
Low productivity
The Prime Minister went on about his belief that Tongans generally don’t look deep into the future. He reckoned that Tongans are scared of the future and that is why we don’t work hard. To prove his point he repeated what he had told the House a number of times before that the productivity rate of government ministries was only 18%, compared with 80% of the Chinese construction companies that are carrying out construction work in Tonga.
“What is our policy to fight deficit?” he asked. “We have to look at our curriculum, to make sure that it addresses the needs of the country.,,,During the past 12 years, there has been no forward movement,” said the Prime Minister.
Lord Vaea queried, that if the output of the Ministry of Education was low (18%) then “Why increase their salaries?”
Lord Fusitu’a stressed that the Prime Minister was blaming everybody, but there was no policy "what is his vision to solve the problems"
Debate
The Chairman expressed his concern that some Members just wanted to have an argument. “I am here to set our direction; turn left, right and sit down.”
The Minister of Finance, Hon. ‘Aisake Eke corrected the concern that there is a deficit in the budget.
“There is no deficit!” said ‘Aisake. “The problem here is too much money, but no one borrows.”
He stressed that government has $35 million in its Foreign Reserve, ample to keep the country running for nine months.
[Commercial banks have money to lend, but borrowers are reluctant because unattractive loan terms, such as high interest rate, in addition is an economic environment that is not conducive to building businesses].
The debate in the House took a sudden shift after Lord Vaea moved for the Ministry of Education to separate itself from Educational Institutions.
He proposed for government to focus on identifying bright kids from Form 3 upward, and direct them for further studies overseas, “leave tertiary education for the others.”
He said that that is what the Ministry of Education used to do. He believed that when those bright kids returned, it would enable Tonga to keep up with the rest of the world.
The Prime Minister though stressed that what was most important for him is the problem of school dropouts. He said that there is a 50-70% dropout rate at Form 5. “Leaving only 30% to go on with their studies.
“We are just going on with the same curriculum, and $50m has been spent during the past 10 years.
“We are very concerned and we want to find out why,” explained ‘Akilisi Pohiva. “The reason why there is no progress, because there is no information to guide us.”
He said that government is making a definitive move to put in place e-government to collect data and to analyse the work of government ministries.
“The work of ministries will not improve unless we know how they operate,” said the Prime Minister.
The Chairman called for votes. Vote No. 16 of the Ministry of Education and Training was carried 11-0.