From the House by Pesi Fonua

Tonga’s $599.27 million pa‘anga 2019-20 National Budget was passed by the Tongan Parliament yesterday 27 June with 12-6 votes.

Most unusual in this year’s budget debate is that there were no changes at all to the Budget presented by the Minister for Finance, Hon. Pohiva Tu‘i‘onetoa on 10 June.

After its second reading the Budget was carried 11-7, and its after its third Reading 12-6.

Budget debate this year has not flowed easily in parliament.

For a start, the House’s Standing Committee on Finance, and the Ministry of Finance did not work in cooperation as might be normally expected. Because of this break down, the debate over the National budget became very confrontational at times, because some the controversial issues could not be discussed and sorted out in the Standing Committee by its members, before the report of the Standing Committee was tabled into the House.

Whether by design or accident, the Minister of Finance Hon. Pohiva Tu‘i‘onetoa, a member of the Standing Committee on Finance, did not attend any of its meetings, and staff of the Ministry of Finance also could not attend to clarify issues when requested to do so by the Committee.

As a result some of the aggressive verbal exchanges during the budget debate, were frustrated questions about allocated funds in the budget.

There were proposals to adjust allocations and change the budget that were not addressed. The only answers that were given were that the projects had been planned, and the funds allocated and it was going to time consuming and costly to change it.

House operational funds

In the Budget Allocation of the House itself the 17 People’s Representatives, currently have access to $200,000 each from their Constituency Fund

Proposals were made during debate for an increase in the Constituency Fund to enable the nine Nobles’ Representatives to have $100,000 each, arguing that they were also representative members in Parliament and were entitled to that fund to meet the needs of the community.

Controversial

The allocation of this fund is a controversial issue in itself, because it is obvious that members are using it to campaign for the next election, giving them a significant financial advantage over rival candidates.

Nobody in the House was arguing that it might be more sensible to leave the money for government ministries to service the community needs, since the ministries are short of operational funds.

This year was unusal because after two weeks of sitting, parliament did not start debate over the specific National Budget Allocations until after lunch on the last day, and there were no changes made to Budget that was tabled into Parliament by the Minister of Finance, Hon. Pohiva Tu‘i‘onetoa on 10 June.

It was obvious that a majority of the members of the House were government supporters and despite credible and aggressive issues raised by Nobles' Representative, Lord Nuku, Lord Tu'ilakepa, Lord Tu‘i‘afitu, Lord Tu‘ivakano, and People's Representative, Siaosi Sovaleni, Tevita Lavemaau and Samiu Vaipulu, but at voting time they were out-voted.