Parliament passes 2019-20 National Budget

This constituency fund is vote buying, and undemocratic and a threat to our democracy. All you need to do is promise a share of this constituency fund to voters in the run up to elections, or start buying votes when passing out funds for community projects. People are smart and know what it really is, pro-democrats need to push this constituency fund out of the budget, assuming there are any true democrats in parliament. And not forgetting to mention this is from a hand to mouth budget with what seems to be no future plans of improving our fiscal health. Please, nobles dont answer to voters, people need jobs, better wages not payments that would influence political views.

Aid dependency is bad for Tonga, plenty of scholarly papers out there support the argument against aid. Its meant to be a temporary support, but aid has a way of influencing politics that results in slower reform and thus progress. Why push unpopular reform when aid can cover it. Without aid, Tonga would feel a crunch in the economy but this might shake the political system into producing a push for these much needed structural and economic reforms. Aid is not a real development plan, you need reforms that would attract investments that would start development in industries, trade, tourism, agriculture etc.