Labour export offers hope for Tonga [1]
Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - 19:30. Updated on Wednesday, April 23, 2014 - 14:42.
More insane than doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results is expecting the guava to become an apple without taking on board the incredible if not impossible genetics to bring this about.
I'm referring to Sione Mokofisi's latest on the lack of jobs and the empty rhetoric from the few parliamentary candidates you've featured in these pages lately.
I share Mokofisi'i concern over the lack of job opportunities but wish to comment on a number of his preferred options.
The outsourcing industry works in India, China and most of Asia because of the size of their populations and proximity to markets. On those two counts alone we won't even get a look in. If you also add the need for reliable power and being on the sea lanes to and from the markets, we're looking more like rank outsiders.
We are a comparatively under populated chain of islets mid-Pacific with an expensive and often unreliable source of power or energy and are more likely to add rather than reduce outsourcing costs. We are ultimately an untenable option for the outsourcing that Mokofisi seeks. It isn't our politicians' fault that the outsourcing fraternity do not see value in Tonga or any other country of our size and locality anywhere in the world. In outsourcing terms, we're destined to be the guava that will never be an apple.
Singapore is an often quoted comparison but again, a closer scrutiny will make clear why Singapore's uniqueness is impossible to replicate elsewhere but in Asia where it is strategically positioned to harvest opportunities from being among the economic tigers of the region.
But two things that Tonga could heed out of Singapore and from all other successful economies today: a leadership which offered its people a realistic sense of nationhood and a far-sighted but practical vision to invest and retain the country's most valuable asset it's people.
Too long to go into here, but Singapore's reputation wasn't built around the concept that their country was delivered to and by the Almighty so that they were destined to a blessed existence no matter whether they were productive or not. Singaporeans were realistic in that they were a desperate young nation who were not owed a living by the rest of the world and that their destiny rested with their own efforts, evidenced by their investment in quality education, and therefore the ability of their people to think and not be dependent on divine deliverance. They worked hard.
As Tongans we have to accept our own contribution to fostering our version of Godzone and the baggage that came with it. More importantly that we accept that unless there is a paradigm shift in attitude and expectations, we could never be the Singapore of the South Pacific.
On the job creating front, almost all of the Pacific island nations share the same predicament we don't do jobs creation well and are unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future unless you're resource rich such as PNG.
For the Samoas, Tonga and even Fiji and the Melanesian countries, the jobs for our people are off-shore. The Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka have been exporting labour for decades and so has Tonga but only
informally. But we have over the last four years, formalised this form of reverse outsourcing. Although we're at the early stages of formal labour exporting, the examples from elsewhere in the world suggests that this is something that we can do well with little 'capital' investment. We are following in the footsteps of other Asian as well as island nations in the Carribean who have been exporting labour successfully to North America, Canada and the middle East for decades or more.
The current Tongan scheme on trial has a built-in advantage in that we're deliberately exporting our less skilled workers and our unemployed. Many countries including the countries that we export labour to - and even the great USA would give their eye teeth to be able to do that.
Our 1200 or placements of seasonal worker in New Zealand and Australia today is a small but growing share of our reported unemployment rate of 13% or so. We are capable of doing more and better. The "market" opportunities for work world wide is vast and varied but will not always provide a win-win for us. It requires planning and careful resourcing and to be Singaporean about our approach.
Like Mokofisi, I've been looking at the calibre of leadership on the eve of a political sea-change that has been in the making in Tonga for nearly four decades. On paper we have good reasons to be optimistic because our new political arrangement is likely to be more bottom-up than top-down.
We've done copra, bananas, whole coconuts, cassava, melons, squash and now melons again and other agricultural produce. We have plucked and plumbed the depths of our seas and reefs for the familiar and the exotic. None appear to be sustainable for long.
Our labour exports are at its infancy with potential to address poverty, social issues and to provide economically through foreign exchange earnings. The question is will we allow this to go the way of our other exports or can we narrow down our options and try to do a few things better and to a
level that we can be a Singapore success story in these shores.
Sef Hao'uli
sefita [dot] haouli [at] gmail [dot] com