From Matangi Tonga Magazine, Vol. 16, no. 1, June 2001.

The $3 million pa‘anga Shopping Centre development on Nuku‘alofa’s Taufa‘ahau Road is a dream come true for Tongan businessman, Tevita Misa Fifita.

When the centre is completed before the end of the year it will be a monument of his business success, and a showcase for the Tongan companies that have been involved in the construction of the island’s biggest shopping centre.

Tevita had a humble beginning in business, but with an eye for opportunities he has been successful in a variety of ventures. It was Tevita who first ventured out into wholesale delivery in a big way with a fleet of trucks serving the villages.

Tevita made another big break in the late 1980s when he got into the selling of second hand cars, and today has the biggest used car business in Tonga, and has extended his operation to New Zealand.

With the new shopping centre Tevita is combining his retail and wholesale administration. “The time has come to bring all these businesses into one place, and it will make it easier for my children to manage things, except for the car sales which will remain where they are.”

Tevita is a publicity-shy person who would much rather get on with the work than talk about it, and although he is one of Tonga’s most successful businessmen he maintains an extremely low-profile and rarely allows himself to be photographed.

The shopping complex consists of two buildings with over 4000 sq. metres floor-space. Facing Taufa‘ahau Road, the ground floor of the large building will house a supermarket with the office for Tevita’s Si‘i Kae Ola Co. upstairs.  The smaller building will house a wholesale outlet and a motor parts shop.

Solomone Tuita of Jamie Architects, the architect and the Project Manager, said that the remainder of the upstairs space would be office space for rent.

He said that Tevita’s Shopping Centre was the biggest project by an individual client that they had designed, “but is very different from other buildings that we have been involved in because of our client’s personal involvement in the work. He wanted a building that would last for a 100 years and he wanted it to be built only by Tongan companies. He also wanted it to have a lot of parking space, a very practical layout, but to be an attractive looking building.” Solomone said that to make sure that they knew exactly the kind of building that Tevita was thinking about, they visited a number of places overseas, looking at some of the buildings which he liked.

Unusual

“The construction is ahead of schedule, and it is all because of Tevita Fifita, whom I jokingly refer to as the real Project Manager. Tevita Moala provides the labour for the big building and Sione Misa for the small building, but Tevita has his ways of making people put in just a little bit extra. Construction started in February but by May we had already started pouring concrete on the top floor. When Tevita is

in town he is at the site every day, and he stands in if someone is not coming to work. I have never worked with a client like him and that is the only reason why the construction is ahead of schedule. With a building complex of this size it should take about 14 months but if we keep going this way it will be completed in nine months,” said Solomone.

Other companies which are involved in the construction include Moala Construction, Kifi Moala Electrical Contractor, Saia Fonua’s VIP Engineering for communications, and Kramer (Tonga) Ltd, for structural engineering.