The Tongan government will buy the national diesel power generation facilities from Shoreline Power this year, the Minister of Finance, Hon. Siosiua 'Utoikmanu told a Press Conference in presenting his 2007-08 Budget on Friday June 29.

The minister said that a Commission would be established soon to manage and to operate the power generation facilities.

Tonga's King George Tupou V, is one of the shareholders of Shoreline, but his involvement in business has been criticised by politicians. On his accession to the Tongan Throne last year, King George declared that he would sell all his business interests and would no longer be involved in business.

Initially, there was speculation last year that North Power of New Zealand was going to buy Shoreline Power, but following November 16 when the building of the Shoreline Group of companies was razed, North Power announced that they were no longer interested in Shoreline. The original deal was for government to buy the power generation back from Shoreline, then ether lease or sell the right to North Power.

With the politicians demanding that the national power generation business come back to government, and the king publicly announcing that he no longer wants to be involved in the power generation business, there was no alternative for government but to buy back Shoreline Power, and then to set up an entity to manage and operate Tonga's electric power supply.

It has been publicly speculated that some $40 to $60 million of an $118 million pa'anga loan that Tonga is about to finalise with China will go toward buying back Shoreline Power.