Small Industries Centre survives [1]
Saturday, September 26, 1998 - 11:30. Updated on Sunday, December 6, 2015 - 16:33.
From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 13, no. 3, October 1998.
Hiram Pang, a Hawaiian, and his wife Amelia, from Neiafu, Vava‘u, visited Tonga in August, “just for holiday and to see some old friends.”
Hiram is the man who designed and built Nuku‘alofa’s Small Industries Centre from 1978 to 1981. Out of the six centres that were built in the South Pacific Islands, funded by the ADB, “only the Tongan SIC is still in operation. The developers who built the other centres failed to train anyone to run them and so when they left these places ceased to operate.” Hiram is now managing $150 million worth of military construction, while ‘Amelia is a staff nurse at the Hawai‘i State Hospital.