From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 17, no. 1, May 2002.

Tonga’s Chief Secretary and the Secretary for Cabinet, Mrs ‘Eseta Fusitu‘a, dismissed the USA Department of State report as having been doctored, not factual and incomplete. “A report of this nature, I am sure, is used as a reference by international organisations, but we have never been asked to comment.”

‘Eseta said that the incomplete nature of the report was a deliberate attempt to paint a negative image of the Tongan government. She pointed out that the Section on Political rights reported that the King appointed his son, Prince ‘Ulukalala Lavaka Ata as Prime Minister and the holder of five other Ministerial portfolios, “but they excluded that at the same time Siosiua ‘Utoikamanu was appointed as the Minister of Finance, Hon. Fielakepa as the Minister of Land, and Hon. Malupo as the Governor of Ha‘apai.

“The [report that] establishment of a Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry into a National Trust Fund account led to the September resignations of the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Education, is an outright lie. The Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry had nothing to do with the resignation of the two Ministers, and they resigned before the committee presented its findings,” she said.

‘Eseta did not want to comment on other sections of the report because she insisted that it was incomplete and had been “doctored to meet the objective of the writer”.