Anti-corruption struggle upsets PR commissioner [1]
Sunday, July 20, 2014 - 18:03. Updated on Sunday, July 20, 2014 - 23:03.
By Pesi Fonua, Editor / Publisher Matangi Tonga Online
Tonga's Acting Commissioner for Public Relations, 'Aisea Taumoepeau, is upset over the Matangi Tonga report From the House: " Tonga's up-hill struggle with corruption [2]" of July 16.
The office of the Commissioner for Public Relations is currently responsible for handling any complaints against government services and government enterprises.
After summoning me down to his office at 2:00pm on Friday afternoon 18 July, with a request to talk and for me to show him some of my source materials from the Tongan Parliament and the Crown Law archives, he expressed his intense dislike of our story.
He said the story was wrong, though he could not point out exactly which facts in the story were wrong, but he expressed his distrust of my sources of information, which were the Tongan Parliamentary proceedings and the Crown Law archives.
'Aisea was a former Attorney General and Minister of Law, until he was forced to resign during the early 2000s.
After repeating a number of times that our story was wrong, he became very loud and intimidating, and agitated for me to leave his office.
Complaints procedure
Immediately after I got back to my office I rang the Public Relations Commission office and told the receptionist that I want to make a formal complaint. The receptionist suggested that I should make my complaint directly to the Acting Commissioner himself, but unfortunately he had gone home, and his deputy had not returned from lunch.
The deputy commissioner Pilimisolo Tamo‘ua later returned my call, and I told him that I wanted to lay a complaint against the Acting Commissioner of Public Relations for his rude behavior, and to whom should I talk?
The Deputy Commissioner recommended that it was best for me to write and complain straight to the Acting Commissioner himself.
Well, why bother?
This reinforces our story of July 16 which simply pointed out that putting an anti-corruption mechanism into place is a struggle for Tonga.
We stand by our story.