From the House by Pesi Fonua

The Tongan Parliament continues to have problem with its working schedule and agenda.

The House started late yesterday, Tuesday 13 August, well after 10 am.

There was no clear explanation for why Parliament started late, but presumably it did not have a quorum, a problem that the House has been facing since 5 August.

The two main problems that appear to be hindering Parliament from proceeding normally. Firstly, it has difficulty finding a quorum. Secondly, neither the Annual Reports from various Ministries nor the Legislations and Regulations had not been tabled into parliament to be scrutinised,  The documents that have been passed by Cabinet have to be passed by Parliament to complete the process so that it can be legally enforced.

Absent from yesterday’s proceeding were four Cabinet Ministers, the Prime Minister Hon. ‘Akilisi Pohiva; Minister for Finance, Hon. Pohiva Tu'i'onetoa; Minister for Land, Lord Ma’afu, and the Minister for Education, Hon. Penisimani Fifita; two Noble Representatives, Lord Tu’ilakepa and Lord Fusitu’a; and two People's Representatives, ‘Akosita Lavulavu and Vatau Hui.

Only three items remained on the House’s working agenda - the two annual reports for 2014-2015, and 2016-2017 from the Minister of Police, and the 2017- 2018 annual report of the Electoral Commission.

Top on the agenda was the Police Annual Reorots. Initially, the Speaker deferred the 2014-2015 report because they had received only the English version of the report, but not the Tongan version.

Any documents that are tabled into Parliament must be in the Tongan language.

However, as the House was about to proceed with the 2016-2017 Annual Report of the Minister for Police, the No. 3 Tongatapu People’s Representative, Siaosi Sovaleni, queried if it was appropriate for them to debate over the 2016-2017 Annual Report, when they had not read and found out what happened during 2014-2015.

Lord Nuku also queried the legality for a minister to sign and table an Annual Report of another minister. (This is the case with some of the Annual Reports that were tabled into the House by the Minister of Education, the day before. The same issue with the two Annual Reports of the Minister for Police who became the Minister of Police in early 2017. Ministries Annual Reports of ministries cover the period from the beginning of December to the end of January).

After a bit of ping pong over the issues the Speaker called for the Clerk to read the 2017-2018 Annual Report of the Electoral Commission.

Hon Vuna Fa’otusia, the Minister responsible for the Electoral Commission said that the Commission has three staff members and they used to also manage the National Identity Cards which are now being managed by the Palace Office.

Tevita Lavemaau believed it is essential to advance Tonga’s democratic process by enabling Tongan overseas to be able to participate in our General Election.

Lord Nuku queried the logic of setting the voting age at 21, but under the Tongan Law a Tongan male can own land at the age of 16.

The Speaker pointed out that there were three requests from the Commission, for the National Identity Cards to be returned from the Palace Office to the Commission, to increase their budget allocation to enable them to cater with the Town and District Officers election.

At the end the Speaker called for votes, for the House to Recognize the Electoral Commission 2017-2018 Annual Report. It was carried with votes 12-0.

The Speaker announced that the House would close [indefinitely], and he would inform members when they will resume.