Editor

Allow me to seek a better understanding of the questions raised in Joe Smith's letter of 28 Jan 07.

Have the royals not stolen Tongasat (Forbes estimates US$55M) and Shoreline (buy back at $60M) from the people?

The US guys that proposed the venture could have approached any Jack and Harry to be in the business or they could had gone somewhere else. If one is looking for a business partner, one will look for a partner that will make the business work! Why is that stealing?

Shoreline was acquired through a tender process while Clive Edwards was the chair of TEPB. The buy back price for Shoreline was set by Price Waterhouse based on the investments Shoreline has made and other losses as per the agreement, etc. Why is that stealing?

What about the current government debt of $187M? Wow, that'’s $250M or $2500 for every man, woman and child in Tonga.

We don'’t need to get into the price of gas or electricity, but the stealing is rampant.

What about the debt? Any other small developing country like Tonga is in debt! What is wrong with the price of gas? That is set by the Competent Authority. What is wrong with the price of electricity? TEPB can approve or reject any Shoreline requests for increass or decreases as they see fit.

Why does the royal family have lavish homes in Tonga, NZ and USA while there are roads in Tonga that are not paved, many villages in the outer islands without running water, many family homes still use outhouses instead of in-house bathroom/toilets, etc.

Similarly, we can ask why are some Tongans, commoners of course, have lavish homes in Tonga, NZ, Aust and USA? Because of their hard work and living their dreams! Do you want the royal family to sell their homes and use that to pave the roads? Should all the wealthy Tongans do the same?

Villages in the outer islands do not have distributed water because you don...’t have to dig deep to find that the water is salty in there. That is why you find that almost all outer island families have a water tank provided by government and various NGOs through various aid programmes. Most of the outer islands houses are ...“fale afa...” provided through the relief programme of the last hurricane. It is impossible to add in-house bathroom and toilet to these when most do not even bother to fix their rain water gutters (hand out mentality!).

The royals are human just like you and me and deserve to be treated fairly. It would then help the Yankee to remember the 13th Commandement ...– Be real and do unto others what you want done unto thyself.

'Ofa atu

Sione Fifita

fifitasione [at] yahoo [dot] com [dot] au