From the House by Pesi Fonua

The Tonga Legislative Assembly passed its $589.6 million pa‘anga National Budget for 2020-21, on Thursday18 June, with votes of 21-0.

The Ministry of Finance has the biggest budget allocation of $166m, followed by the Ministry of Education with $73.3m and the Ministry of Health with $70.6m.

With Tonga’s biggest-ever deficit of $60 million, debate has been tense at times in the Committee of the Whole House over the last two weeks, while the nation follows the somewhat messy debate on radio broadcasts.

$60m deficit

The House has created a sense of uncertainty over the state of Tonga's economy as we are budgeting for the government's operations over the coming financial year 2020-21.

Apart from the current threat of CoVid-19 and its enormous impact on the economy, the tension is largely due to the changing of the government.

Only seven months ago a new Prime Minister was elected by parliament to complete the remaining two years term of the government of the late Hon. 'Akilisi Pohiva.

After he was elected as the new Prime Minister, Hon. Pohiva Tu'i'onetoa declared the formation of a new political party and selected a new cabinet, replacing some ministers. Because of that, there is a new and not well-understood leadership policy.

So the current budget is coming under the new party and the new cabinet. Interestingly, the new Prime Minister was the former Minister of Finance.

No “readings” or counting of votes

The voting process for the budget allows the allocation for each Ministry to be debated in the Whole House Committee, voted on and passed. Then all the passed allocations go to the Legislature for a second reading that is voted on, and a third reading that is voted on to pass the budget.

A problem with listening to the last fortnight of this budget debate is that the documents with the key figures have not been released, and they were not “read” out loud in parliament.

We do not have an official copy of the Budget Statement or the National Budget, and the debate in the Committee of the Whole House was obscure. The members of parliament have copies of the budget, but surprisingly few figures were revealed in the debate so, for anyone outside of their number listening, the debate is hard to follow.

For example, very few Cabinet Ministers started their budget presentations by stating the total amount of their budget allocations, while others vaguely mentioned a number of figures, which you might presume to be his or her budget allocation.

The Chairman of the Committee of the Whole House, Lord Tu‘i‘afitu made things even more confusing by calling for votes, but not actually taking the votes. He made a sort of declaration in the form of “Let's pass this vote” (when you might expect them to vote) but instead simply saying “Passed”,  before moving on to the next allocation.

There was no objection from any of the members over this irregular procedure.

Six million chickens

However, there were some interesting issues and revealing exchanges that were highlighted during the budget debate.

The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Lord Tu‘ilakepa announced a working project for the year, to raise six million chickens. To feed these six million chickens he has to grow 500 acres of corn. While the main objective of the project is to produce electricity from chicken manure, it will also reduce Tonga’s importation of frozen chicken for consumption.

He pointed out that Tongans consumed 302,000 kilos of imported chicken every week.

He said that the project to produce electricity from poultry manure was initiated from Israel, but the equipment will be provided by Germany.

Lord Tu‘ilakepa expressed his intention to alter the statistic that only 20% of Tongans grow their own food, while the other 80% buy their food.

Cremations

An important land issue was raised by Dr Saia Piukala, the Vava‘u No. 14 People’s Representative, who proposed for new legislation, allowing the process of cremation to replace burials.

Traditionally, most cemeteries are located on the coastline for the convenience of getting sand to bury the dead. The problem now is the sea level rising and people have to move cemeteries further inland. They were having a problem securing new land for cemeteries, and still in need of a huge amount of sand for burials, so cremation appeared to be the way for the future

The Minister of Lands, Lord Ma‘afu, said that there was already a legislation on cremation but the regulations were needed on it. In addition, they were also looking at burials at sea.

Opposition

A closing highlight of the 2020-21 Budget Debate was a request by Siaosi Pohiva, People’s Representative for Constituency No. 1, for the House to vote on each budget allegation in turn, and not on the whole budget as proposed by the Speaker.

The one particular Vote that the Member disagreed with, and he wanted to show it with his vote, was the allocation for the Ministry for Infrastructure. He opposed the government program to construct 2100 kilometers of tar-sealed roads and to distribute 5000 community water tanks, and he wanted to vote against it.

The Speaker however proceeded and called for votes on the Whole Budget Allocation for 2020-2021. It was passed 20-0 in its Second “Reading”, and 21-0 in its Third “Reading”.

Revenue collection

In hindsight, the whole roads project will increase Tonga's imports of vehicles and fuel. Alongside this massive national road tarsealing project is the fact that there were added incentives proposed in form of a 50% import tax on imported 10 -15 years old vehicles.

This will encourage a massive influx of imported vehicles into the country, and government will collect the taxes.

Despite the fact that we are the second most vulnerable country in the world to the impact of sea level rising, our contribution to air pollution will jump. For a government to plan to increase its revenues from older fossil fuel vehicles and increased fossil fuel consumption is a suicidal policy and it appears that we are completely ignoring the warnings of climate change experts.

No salary cut

Interesting also, was that a salary cut for MPs did not go through. The proposition by the Prime Minister for Members of Parliament to contribute 20% of their annual salaries to government to counter COVID-19, (made before the House began its Budget Debate and lowered to the Finance Committee), did not survive to this final stage of the House voting on the National Budget.

Despite the fact that the House appeared to be in a hurry to pass the budget, and did not want to spend time explaining it, they finished with time to spare. When it was passed on Thursday, the Minister of Finance thanked and congratulated members for their hard work, and reminded them that they still had one week and two days before the end of the month, 30 June, which is the end of the 2019-20 Financial Year.

Budget allocations for government ministries that were passed by the Tongan Parliament on Thursday, 18 June included:

• Palace Office - $3,669,100
• Office of the Ombudsman - $1,547,900
• Legislative Assembly - $13,770,000
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs -  $10.66m
• Ministry of Finance -  $166m
• Ministry for Agriculture, Food, Forests - $13.4m.
• For Fisheries - $9.8m
• Ministry for Infrastructure and Tourism - $25.18m.
• Ministry for Land and Natural Resources - $12.6m.
• Ministry for Meteorology, Energy, Information, Disaster Management, Environment Climate Change and Communications - $57m.
• The Auditor General - $2.1m.
• Ministry for Police, Fire and Emergency Service - $15.2m.
• Ministry for Education and Training - $73.3m.
• Ministry for Health - $70.6m.

and

• His Majesty’s Armed Force (amount not specified in debate)
• Ministry for Public Enterprises (amount not specified in debate)
• Ministry for Trade and Economic Development (amount not specified in debate)
• Ministry for Justice and Prisons (amount not specified in debate)
• Office of the Attorney General (amount not specified in debate)
• Public Service Commission (amount not specified in debate)
• Statistics Department (amount not specified in debate).