THE ownership of a research report on Tonga for the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor has become a matter of contention between two groups of academic researchers from the Unitec Institute of Technology, New Zealand.

The report is important, because it indicates areas where aid donors could help to further develop the entrepreneurship of Tongans, but a group of the original researchers are now claiming that the report that was released on July 26 was "unvetted and unauthorised" and that neither they nor the Tonga Statistics Department were given access to the final report and data.

The dispute surfaced last week following the release of an 18-page report by Unitec New Zealand in the presence of the Tongan Prime Minister Dr Feleti Sevele at the International Dateline Hotel, Nuku'alofa, on July 26.

The report entitled "Benchmarking Entrepreneurial Behaviour in the Pacific GEM Tonga 2009" containing brief policy recommendations was contracted by AusAID to Unitec in cooperation with the Global Entrepreneurship Research Association of London.

Protest

However, in a press statement this week the principal investigator and leader of the original team Professor Howard Frederick said the report had been released in Tonga, "despite the protestations of the expert field research team who designed the study and collected the data with the support of the Statistics Department of Tonga."

The original research team also included the GEM Tonga National Director Tania Wolfgramm and Professor of Statistics Stephen Haslett of Massey University in New Zealand.

The GEM Tonga team included forty Tonga Statistics Department trained researchers who gathered responses from 1184 households across all island groups in June-July of 2009 and the survey had successfully studied the level of social and business entrepreneurship in Tonga, Prof Frederick said.

Another member of the original team Prof. Haslett also stated that, "Statistics Tonga was a co-equal partner in the research project with regard to the fieldwork, analysis and reporting. We could not have done it without them."

During the research project Prof. Frederick moved to Deakin University in Melbourne

New team took over

He said that a new group "none of whom were involved in the field research in Tonga, was established by Unitec, which appropriated the Aus-AID funded contract. . . . and despite many requests neither our team nor the Tongan Department of Statistics saw the report prior to its release."

"Unitec released a report that was not validated, authenticated and authorised under the agreement between the original researchers and the Tongan Department of Statistics," said Prof. Frederick.

No contact

The Head of Tonga's Statistic Department 'Ata'ata Finau said this week that the second group that released the final report had never made any contact with him and when he asked Unitec for a copy of the final report he was told that the report "was a property of AusAid." 'Ata'ata said he disagreed because it was against the Statistics Act, but admitted that he had shied away from challenging it because he presumed that the Prime Minister was given a copy when the final report was released on July 26.

When Matangi Tonga Online asked the AusAID representative at the Australian High Commission, Nuku'alofa, they released a media copy of the GEM Tonga report, "Volume One - Policy Recommendations". This contains the second team's recommendations but not the data collected.

But on the issue of whether or not the report was a property of AusAID, and why the Tonga government Statistics Department was not given a copy of the final report, we were told to ask Robert Davis, Unitec NZ. Robert however responded to our query by telling us that we should ask the Prime Minister's Office.

The Prime Minister's Political Advisor and Press Secretary, Lopeti Senituli said last week that as far as he was concerned the content of the report had been publicised and if the two groups were having an academic argument, that was fine and there was nothing to worry about.

Final data withheld

But in their press statement the original group of researchers maintain that it was not possible to complete their assigned task because, "the Unitec Group will not release the final data to the Government statistician."

As it stands, the controversial report notes that a lack of ability and knowledge regarding business start up processes is evident in Tonga. "This is demonstrated by the absence of planning and budgeting capability, which negatively impacts on profit retention." They recommended providing business training workshops and to introduce business studies into the Tongan education system at an early stage.

Editor's Note: Tania Wolfgramm has informed us that her team has been given a copy of the Unitec's final report.