By Pesi Fonua

Tonga's Speaker called for the House to close early at 4:00 pm today, "because it has been a tough day," he said, after a group of petitioners insisted that the House make an immediate investigation of members salaries and pensions.

Two women, whose petition signed by 44 people called for an urgent investigation into last year's pension part-payouts to members of parliament, were today successful in getting their petition debated on by the House. But that was only after they complained widely that the Speaker had ordered the Security officers to keep them away.

On Tuesday July 20, Lusiola Tomasi Misa, a faith healer and religious leader, and Papiloa Bloomfield-Foliaki, a former member of parliament and hotel owner, lodged a letter of petition with 44 signatures at the Tonga Legislative Assembly offices.

The Petition asked the Speaker to investigate the legality of pension withdrawals believed to have been made by some members of the House last year. The petitioners also called for the Minister of Finance to stop paying out advance salaries to members of parliament.

The petition called for action on three main complaints that:

"1. We ask the staff of the House to investigate immediately the legality of the partial withdrawal by members of the House of their pensions, before it was legalized to do so.

"and, If in your investigation you find that this was illegal we petitioners appeal that those involved should be sued and expelled from the House immediately.

"Secondly, our petition is an appeal to the Minister of Finance to stop paying out salaries for members of parliament in advance. This is wrong and this is economically suicidal to the country. The misuse of the authority of the house is painful and scary for us - how easy it is for the house to abuse our tax money . . . Members repeatedly reported to us in the news how there is misuse of funds and yet they do it themselves!"

Not on agenda

On Wednesday July 21 Lusiola wrote a letter to the Speaker and appealed to him "to please assure us that our petition that was delivered on July 20 will be part of the agenda of the House for Thursday 22 July."

But after that Lusiola said that she had been informed by Papiloa Foliaki, that the Clerk of the House told her to withdraw their petition because it was incorrect.

So later on Wednesday Lusiola wrote another letter to the Speaker and copied it to the Lord Chamberlain, the Secretary to the King, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet ministers, Nobles Representatives, People's Representatives, district and town officers, church leaders and the media.

Lusiola pointed out that their Letter of Petition was not incorrect and pleaded that, "it is our right under clause 8 of the Constitution".

"The denial of our letters has taken away our right under the Constitution to petition therefore I am asking you to table our letter into the house before you all agree for a lump sum payout for all members of the House," she stated.

Stopped

Then this morning, Thursday July 22, when Lusiola and Papiloa went down to parliament to check on the progress of their petition, they were turned away at the gate by security officers.

"The Speaker did not want to see us," Papiloa said this morning.

However, the women believed there was an urgency in the petition for government to take immediate action because of concern that the House, which decides its own salaries may give themselves massive pay-offs before the House closes in preparation for the November Election of a new government, she said.

The petition was drawn up after it was revealed in the House last week by the Minister for Information, during debate on a Bill for the Establishment of a Salary Commission, that some members had received a half of their pension last year.

The Minister of Information, 'Eseta Fusitu'a, said at lunch-time today that debate on the petition had begun this morning and would continue in the afternoon. She said she had told the House that the achievement of political change was flawed by the incident at the gate, "because you ill-treat our people like that."

"As a woman member of parliament, I am more than horrified that security was used to turn these women away," she said. "When they have every right to bring the petition and there were no technical problems with it."

Next week

After some difficult debate and unsupported motions to accept the petition, at the end of today the House agreed for Part One of the Petition to be dealt with by the Privilege Committee of the House next week and then reported back to the House.

The Prime Minister and the Speaker were to deal with Part Two of the Petition.

The House was closed until Monday morning, July 26

Financial hardship clause

Sione Tekiteki, the Deputy Clerk of the House, said this afternoon that it was about October last year when the Legislative Assembly Retirement Benefit Scheme (Amendment) Act 2009 was passed and a financial hardship clause was put in that made it possible for members to be paid part of their pension.

"But they can only pull out what they have put in themselves."

Following the passing of the amendment Sione estimated that, "maybe about five members have received a half of their pension.

"They were eligible to withdraw their own contributions to the scheme, which is two thirds of their total entitlement," he said, "and the remaining one third was the government contribution."

Members pay 10% of their salaries into the pension scheme.

However, the amendment to the Legislative Assembly Retirement Scheme Act came into force on December 18, 2009 - this was about two months later than what Sione remembered.

Sione said that he needed an approval by the chairman of the Legislative Assembly Retirement Board before he could go back and release the dates the payments were drawn, or any other details.