TDS, don't celebrate just yet [1]
Monday, December 1, 2008 - 05:30. Updated on Monday, April 28, 2014 - 11:52.
Editor,
Thank you China. But for Tonga and the Tonga Defense Services, please do not celebrate your promised aircraft until you do your homework. TDS must first analyze two major cost:
1. Operation: a professionally trained pilot and crew, cost of fuel, etc.
2. Maintenance: It is far less difficult to get an aircraft. But you can be assured that it maintenance can be a nightmare.
Sure it will sound good to your neighboring islands that the TDS has an aircraft. But at what cost?
An aircraft for TDS at this time, may not be in the best interest of the Government even if it is for free.
We must no forget that the lights that lighted up the waterfront of Tongatapu not too many years ago were also gifts. The Government failed to remember or chose to overlooked the fact that these lights consumed a
lot of KWH making them costly to maintain.
But then again, the Mean Fighting Machine commonly referred to as TDS together with the brilliant financial advisor's to the government of Tonga must know something that I do not know.
Mafi 'o Amerika Samoa
slkava [at] samoatelco [dot] com