Budget hurts Education and Health services [1]
Thursday, July 1, 1999 - 12:00. Updated on Friday, January 8, 2016 - 13:39.
From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 14, no. 3, July 1999.
From the House by Pesi Fonua.
Any hope by the people of Tonga for their representatives and the Tongan parliament to pass a budget that could revive the economy by allocating a substantial amount of money as incentive to boost production in Tonga’s three main sectors, Agriculture, Fisheries and Tourism, was wishful thinking.
The Tonga Government’s 1999-2000 Budget offered nothing at all for the growers, the fishermen, or to tourism and the business community. Instead, the House immediately shrunk the local economy by $4.78 million when it passed the Budget at 10.30 pm on June 30.
It was a dark evening for Tonga because the recurrent expenditure of government ministries was cut by five per cent, excepting for the votes of the Legislative Assembly and the Ministry of Defence.
The multi-million pa‘anga loss will stress impoverished public services to the breaking point, particularly in health and education where services were struggling to meet the needs of a growing population. It means that Education loses $590,000 and Health loses $470,000.
In addition, the Budget deprives the local business community of $4.78 million, which it might have expected to receive in the sales of goods and services to government, because of the cut in government expenditure from $68.29 million last year to $63.51 million this year.
The rhetoric, that we heard during the campaign for the Parliamentary Election in March, that Tonga’s People’s Representatives would pressure government to allocate funds to boost production and exports, was not heard in the House at all during the Budget debate.
The only special fund that was allocated by the House was $100,000 for the Rugby Union to prepare the ‘Ikale Tahi for the up-coming Rugby World Cup.
The reason for the cuts to government’s ministries recurrent expenditure this year was to free up finance for a new civil service Retirement Fund. The fund was introduced by government to stop what was considered to be an over-generous retirement scheme that dated back to the influence of the colonial administrations. Government was spending 53 seniti of every pa‘anga it earned on the public service.
The other major government investment was $3 million to be spent offshore to lease about 2,000 acres of land in Hawai’i for farming.
The expectations of the community and the endeavours of government appear to be poles apart, as the economic recession continues. While people were hoping for a capital fund, the government was instead buying properties overseas and settling its huge debts to the civil service.