From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 15, no. 3, September 2000.

From the House by Pesi Fonua.

While Tonga’s economy is under pressure from the Reserve Bank, because of a steep dive in the Foreign Reserve; and while the Private Sector and the government are preoccupied with far-sighted new projects in telecommunications, power generation and the marketing of Tongan produce overseas—projects that could secure a place for Tonga in the global economy of the 21st century—Parliament, somehow, has been looking inwards, and preoccupying itself with its internal affairs.

Unfortunately, the more it looks inwards the harder it is to look outward, because the Tonga Legislative Assembly has discovered that its affairs, particularly its finances, are in a mess. The first audited financial report of parliament that has ever been presented to Parliament showed a whole lot of irregularities and expenditures that were not accounted for.

While the House was trying to defend itself, by saying that non-accountability was an old practice, the revelation by the Prime Minister’s Information Unit that the salary of a Member of Parliament could be as high as $60,000 per annum—an amount that was four times higher than the basic salary of about $15,000—has made everyone sit up and think. Now, out in the electorates, where the low income people survive on less than $3,000 a year, and the middle income people might be lucky to take home $10,000 a year, people are wondering if it is really warranted to pay their representatives this kind of money, considering that their parliamentary hand-raising work takes only four hours a day, four days a week, for about six months, and because most of the work of drafting the bills, the budget and the annual reports has been carried out by the ministers and their ministries.

While the public was still digesting the salary issue of their Members of Parliament, it was like rubbing salt into an open wound when it was revealed in the House that an enormous amount of overtime payment had been made out to Members when they went out on their annual tour of the country in August. Some clocked up about 22 hours of overtime, and considering that one hour of overtime is the equivalent of one day’s pay, four hours overtime becomes the equivalent of a politician’s weekly pay packet, of about $1000.

Almost on a daily basis on Tongan television, the salaries of the Members of Parliament, and how the House spent its $1 million vote, became a play thing for prospective candidates for the next parliamentary election, and for anyone who wanted to take a swing at the Members, particularly at the People’s Representatives.

The House is cornered, and has become very defensive, under a relentless attack for wasting time and money. They postpone the House so that members can go home on full pay to read bills and reports, something that they should make time for themselves, and then the debate sadly reveals that they have not done their homework. They are thrashing old issues, which may win votes in the next election, but are obviously useless for dealing with Tonga’s current economic constraint.

A decoy action that members have chosen is to start attacking each other. It is an approach that has further isolated the House, because while it is a publicity stunt for the next election it is quite irrelevant to our lives.