Tonga Power employees refute anonymous claims [1]
Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - 20:30
In a statement to the Prime Minister Lord Tu'ivakano today, 116 Tonga Power Ltd. employees have denied writing an anonymous letter that contained potentially damaging allegations about the company and its Finance Manager Steven 'Esau.
The unsigned anonymous letter surfaced on October 27 when it was sent by email to the Directors of Tonga Power Ltd. and copied to the Prime Minister, calling for an investigation of the company and the Acting CEO, and claimed to be written by insiders from the company who did not want to reveal themselves.
“It was created to make it look like an internal complaint about me as Acting CEO of Tonga Power Ltd,” Steven stated.
The complaints included criticism of the amount of time the ACEO had been out of the country, travelling by staff, a meals program, the sale of a bucket truck, and his recruitment procedure, along with personal allegations.
Response
Today the TPL staff at its Tongatapu, Vava'u, Ha‘apai and ‘Eua branches have denied writing the complaint.
“We have never written such a letter, and as it was an unsigned anonymous letter it could have been written from anyone outside Tonga Power. We do not support it and the allegations in it are false and damaging to the person concerned,” the 116 staff said in a statement sent to the Prime Minister today.
The Tonga Power staff requested that the Prime Minister put aside the unsigned letter as it was intended to damage the reputation of Steven ‘Esau. They asked the Ministers to stop using the letter as a part of their political campaigns for this month's General Election.
They also requested the Prime Minister to reverse his decision to investigate this matter because they believed there was no valid reason to do so, stating, "This has damaged all the good work that Tonga Power Ltd has done since it started."
Meanwhile, John van Brink the CEO of Tonga Power Ltd, on November 4 expressed his disappointment that Cabinet had actually considered an anonymous letter. He said that there was no investigation of the company's operations.