From the House, Minute No. 13, Monday 21 June 2004.

- $500,000 from ADB for 10 Youth Training Programs.

- $780,000 in two years for the Tonga Corporation.

- $9 million to assist Boards and government subsidies to the Private Sector.

- $2.7 million for salary rises of Head of Departments and Cabinet Ministers.

- Minister of Finance and the Minister of Labour differ over Pago Pago project.

- Move for a Royal Commission to investigate the Tonga Corporation and its activities in Hawai'i and Pago Pago.

- Member calls the Minister of Police a dangerous man who will drown the country.

- The government investment on public and private companies amounted to $110 million, and the total loss on these investments is about $51 million.

- Hawai'i land lease forbids growing pineapples, allows only Tongan crops.

- Government to spend $1.3 million to corporatise the Post Office, Talamahu Market, the Government Printing Department and the Tonga Chronicle newspaper.

- The total loan of Public Enterprises to date is about $26 million, but $14 million will have to be paid by government with the taxpayers money. Member suggests just terminating them.

The session started off with the Clerk of the House reading a petition from parents of students at the Teachers' Training College who entered the college in 2003. The petition was tabled into the House by the nine People's Representatives. The petition concerned the allowances of the students that were approved by the House when it passed the Vote of the Ministry of Education for the 2002-03 financial year. However, the students did not get their allowances because Cabinet diverted the fund and spent it on a youth program.

In the Whole House Committee proceedings continued with the debate on Vote No. 14 of the Ministry of Finance.

Trevor Guttenbeil ...— asked the Minister of Finance to clarify what specifically an amount of $600,000 allocated for youth and cultural development would be used for. He said that the government's contribution was $100,000 plus a contribution from the ADB of $500,000.

Minister of Finance ...— said that this was a pilot program that had been planned with the ADB which made an aid in kind of $500,000. There were 10 youth training programs and some of these projects were from NGOs and from the Tonga National Youth Congress. He said that if the project was a success the ADB was willing to increase their assistance.

Minister of Labour ...— told the House his ministry was offering short training courses for the media and security officers and he thought it had been successful, because it enabled participants to find employment.

'Etuate Lavulavu ...— suggested for this amount of money to be given to established institutions with vocational training programs rather than just awarding someone with a job and a salary. He said that short-term training courses had been proven world-wide to be unproductive, and the only people who benefited were the teachers who got the jobs. He emphasised that it was important to ensure that youth are ready to enter the Productive Sector after they leave these vocational training institutions.

The House then proceeded to a different working program in the Minister of Finance's budget.

Dr Feleti Sevele ...— wanted to know that with the introduction of Consumption Tax and the removal of Port and Service Tax, would government be paying Customs Duty for its imported goods?

The Minister of Finance ...— said that with the removal of Port and Service Tax, Sales Tax and Fuel Sales Tax and the introduction of Consumption Tax government would be required to pay Customs Duty at the wharf.

'Isileli Pulu ...— queried a request for funds from government for the Tonga Corporation, last year was $300,000 and this year $480,000 to settle debts. There was also an amount of $2 million to be distributed to other enterprises. He wanted to know if the request from the Tonga Corporation would be deducted from the $2 million.

The Minister of Finance ...— said that the request from the Tonga Corporation would be paid from the allocation for Non Finance public Enterprises, because in addition to their many debts they were also in a scheme to export Tongan vegetables.

'Isileli Pulu ...— called for special attention to be paid to the activities of the Tonga Corporation, because in two years the House had allocated $780,000 for the payment of its debts.

'Akilisi Pohiva ...— wanted to know what it was that the government was spending on in Pago Pago because it seemed that government was spending and does not get back anything in return.

The Minister of Labour ...— explained that starting in September last year a new committee was formed and they had stopped paying for the expenses of the Pago Pago project. He said that since September they had started collecting revenue from the Pago Pago marketing project.

'Akilisi Pohiva ...— pointed out that the two ministers were saying two different things, while the Minister of Finance was saying that there were still debts to be paid and no revenues had been collected from the Pago Pago project, the Minister of Labour was saying that they had stopped payment to Pago Pago and they were collecting revenues.

He proposed for a Royal Commission to be established to investigate the activities of the Tonga Corporation in Hawai'i and in Pago Pago.

He said that a reply to a letter he wrote to the Minister of Finance in 2000 stated the expenses to the government's property in Hawai'i during 1998-99 was $73,500. He acused Cabinet Ministers for blindly following projects which were initiated by the King and spending government money without proper planning and feasibility studies.

The Minister of Police ...— asked the Chairman to stop the member from speaking against His Majesty, and that the Ministers were just following along blindly. He said that the member did not know what he was talking about and he should sit down. He repeated for the member to sit down, because he was trying to throw the government in the water.

'Akilisi ...— said that the Minister of Police is very dangerous, and that he will drown the country in the deep water. He praised the vision of the King to acquire land in Hawai'i, but he claimed that the Ministers who were responsible for executing the project were not doing a good job.

'Etuate Lavulavu ...— proposed for government to pay its debt relating to the project in Hawai'i, and then cease to carry out any farming in the property and then put a sign up "Lease for Sale".

'Isileli Pulu ...— wanted to know if there was ever any revenue from the Hawai'i Project.

The Minister of Finance ...— said there was but it was very small.

'Etuate Lavulavu ...— queried an allocation of $9 million with a very brief description that it was toward a program that had been budgeted for on July 1. He said he was suspicious about what the $9 million was spent on.

The Minister of Finance ...— said the fund was assistance by government to Boards and its subsidies to the Private Sector.

Dr Feleti Sevele ...— asked the Minister of Finance to present a report to the House on the total amount of money that government had spent on its investment in Hawai'i during the past five years, and to also tell the House the state of the Hawai'i project.

He said that the total amount of money that government and foreign aid donors had invested on public and private companies amounted to $110 million and the total amount that it had lost in these investments was about $51 million.

He also pointed out that the total loan of Public Enterprises to date was about $26 million, but $14 million at the end would have to be paid by government with the tax payers money. He suggested that instead of keeping injecting money to keep these enterprises in operation, maybe they should just terminate them.

Fineasi Funaki ...— praised the vision of the King to invest in the purchasing of property in Hawai'i, but he blamed the failure of the project on the people who were responsible for the execution of the project.

He said that the main failure of the project was that under the lease agreement with the Bishop Estate, Tonga is allowed to grow only Tongan agricultural products, and not the commercial products which are grown in Hawai'i such as pineapple. Because of those restrictions it was very difficult for the government to exploit the commercial potential of its investment.

'Etuate Lavulavu ...— who wanted to know who signed the leasing agreement.

The Deputy Prime Minister ...— said that the PRs were cowards because they were criticising people who were no longer in Parliament, and they could not counter the accusations.

The Minister of Finance ...— told the House that the project in Hawai'i had been losing money during the past five years, and they were still losing money. He said that the plan at the moment was to carry out a Market Study to decide what was best to be done in order to make some profit, but if there was no way out then the project would have to be presented back to Cabinet for a final decision on what to do next.

The debate in the House then moved on to a different allocation in the budget of the Minister of Finance.

'Etuate Lavulavu ...— wanted to know on which public enterprises government was going to spend the $1.3 million that it had allocated.

The Minister of Finance ...— said that government would corporatise four government enterprises this year, the Post Office, the Government Printing department, the Talamahu Market Authority and the Tonga Chronicle. He said that the corporatisation of these enterprises would start on 1 January 2005.