A controversial report on the Nuku'alofa Central Business District Reconstruction, known as "The Prime Minister's Report" was submitted to Cabinet on Friday, June 24, the Chief Secretary and Secretary to Cabinet, Busby Kautoke, confirmed yesterday.

But no further information was released as to any decision Cabinet made regarding the critical report written by Dr Teena Brown Pulu and Melino Maka of Auckland.

The investigative report was commissioned on April 29 by Lord Tu'ivakano when he and Cabinet engaged Dr Teena Brown and Melino Maka to undertake a review of NDC's work particularly in relation to the disbursement of monies in the reconstruction of Nuku'alofa.

However, the final report entitled "Nuku'alofa Central Business District Reconstruction, The Prime Minister's Report" received by the PM on June 10, did not support his advisors' allegations and the investigators found the opposite of what was expected. Instead it claimed that the Prime Minister was misinformed by his own people.

On June 22, in response to media coverage on the report that was leaked to the public, the Prime Minister's Office in a press release disagreed with the report's findings and recommendations and cancelled the two researcher's engagement.

Among other things, the report detailed the conditions and the amount of the RMB 440 million loan from the EXIM Bank of China for the reconstruction.

See also Nuku'alofa reconstruction on a knife edge [2]