From the House by Pesi Fonua

When Parliament resumed on Monday, 22 June, the Prime Minister, Hon. Dr Pohiva Tu'i'onetoa thanked members for passing the 2020-2021 National Budget on 18 June.

While he held the floor he took the opportunity to distance his work programme from that of the former government of the late Hon. ‘Akilisi Pohiva.

He wrote a letter to the Speaker, Lord Fakafanua, requesting withdrawal of six bills that had been tabled into the House by the former government.

It was interesting though, that four of the 12 current Cabinet members, including the Prime Minister himself, were members of the previous Cabinet that had tabled the Bills with the House.

The Minister of Justice and Prisons who was responsible for the drafting of bills, Hon. Sione Vuna Fa’otusia is still the Minister; but he remained stranded overseas because of the COVID-19 lock-down of Tonga's borders.

The PM requested the removal of six bills from the working agenda of the House.

He pointed out that the intention of the Bills was to diminish the authority of His Majesty and the Nobles. However, his Cabinet was now convinced that they could develop the country under the current structure.

The Prime Minister explained that the reason for his request to remove the Bill from the working agenda of the House, was because if the bills were passed into law, it would diminish the authority of His Majesty and the Nobles.

It was also intriguing that the Speaker, Lord Fakafanua, accepted the request of the Prime Minister, and did not give members an opportunity to have a say and vote on the PM’s request.

The six Bills that the Speaker agreed to withdraw from the working agenda of the House were:

1. Act of Constitution of Tonga (Amendment) Bill 2019
2. Act of Constitution of Tonga (Amendment No. 2) Bill 2019
3. Tonga Police (Amendment) Bill 2019
4. Magistrate’s Court (Amendment) Bill 2019
5. Judicial and Legal Service Commission Bill 2019
6. National Spatial Planning and Management (Amendment) Bill 2019.

Landless

The other announcement that the Prime Minister made on Monday, was that he had a solution for the 20,000 families that have no land where they could build houses.

He said that government would not only look for land, but also build houses for these people. He stressed that the project was to fight poverty.

Light of Day

However, after the Prime Minister announced his impressive housing project for the poor, the Ha‘apai No. 13 People’s Representative, Veivosa Light of Day Taka, questioned who was going to pay for these 20,000 houses.

The Prime Minister admitted, “this is a plan, a vision. The details will come later, we are working on it....”

He was also very convincing in saying that a new national domestic airline would be in operation soon. Tonga’s sole domestic airline, Real Tonga ceased operation recently, after its aircraft was damaged by a bird strike.

However, apart from the dreams, the Prime Minister said there were two projects confirmed: a $600,000 COVID-19 testing facility that had been launched, and Tonga could now export Kava to the European Union markets.