Tonga Chamber of Commerce stalls challenge [1]
Saturday, April 8, 2006 - 16:57. Updated on Monday, September 29, 2014 - 10:05.
Hecklers forced the Tonga Chamber of Commerce Annual General Meeting to a standstill on April 6, after a last minute bid for voting rights by about 120 new applicant members failed, in a challenge to the office bearers.
The President of the Tonga Chamber of Commerce, Tapu Panuve, as chairman, stopped the AGM because of persistent heckling from both inside the meeting and outsiders on the road. Some were calling for the president to step down because of his refusal to change the agenda of the meeting.
Before the election of office bearers came up on the agenda, the President of another business organisation, the Tonga Small Business Association (TSBA), Tu'i Uata, wanted to change the agenda and talk about other matters, but the chair did not think it was proper to change the agenda. Tu'i then accused the president of mismanaging the chamber and called for him to step down.
Tu'i and other members of the TSBA who were present said the Chamber had accepted membership applications by 120 of their members, but was denying them the right to vote at the AGM.
There were also calls from the floor for the AGM to be postponed for another day, allowing the Chamber to deal with the new membership issue. The situation was slowly getting out of hand when a woman who was not in the meeting began yelling from the roadside, and a group of young men in their working clothes, apparently supporters of the TSBA, were lining up along the picket fence staring at the meeting that was being held under awnings on the front lawn of the Chamber premises on Taufa'ahau Road.
Dr 'Aivi Puloka, the president of the Public Service Association, who is not a member of the Chamber, spoke from the floor at the meeting to give her support to the TSBA, she said, because of the support that the TSBA gave the PSA when the public servants went on strike last year.
Members of the TSBA continued to push for the Chamber agenda to change.
In the heat of the verbal clash the chair called for a 10-minutes adjournment while he held a council meeting. The council decided to suspend the AGM and defer the meeting for a date to be announced.
Concern for safety
Commenting the following day, Tapu said that with regards to the membership issue, he had discussed the matter with Peseti Ma'afu, when they submitted an application for 98 new members at 2 am on Wednesday morning, the day before the AGM. Tapu said that he had made his position clear to Peseti that the Council had to first approve the new applications at its next meeting on April 17.
Tapu said that just because the TSBA applied en-mass for 98 members just did not warrant the Chamber to do things outside their normal procedure. "I decided to defer the meeting because of my concern with the safety of the members. You may have noticed that some of the members slipped away when things started to heat up," said Tapu.
Tapu said he would call a council meeting next week to discuss the membership issue and to set a new date for the AGM.