Govt exempts Tsunami relief supplies from taxes [1]
Sunday, April 4, 2010 - 00:18. Updated on Thursday, May 1, 2014 - 15:12.
Editor,
WITH respect, may I provide the clarifications for the concern that the Government of Tonga may not have shown the appropriate appreciation to the container of Tsunami relief supplies donated by Rev. Pierce of Pangopango, but imposed import taxation on it instead.
To begin with, may I clarify that the policy of the Government of Tonga exempts disaster relief consignments from all taxes, and the procedures have also been simplified to facilitate their easy implementation.
For further information, one of the associated procedures is that if a relief consignment is assigned directly to Government to distribute, no further information or processing is required for its clearance, but the donors could still participate in the distribution of their assistance should they choose to do so. Almost all of the assistance to Niuatoputapu were assigned in this manner, and have been distributed accordingly. However, if the donor wants the consignment assigned to a private individual, then Customs will require the details of the consignment.
Following Rev. Pierce's most generous donation of relief assistance to the people of Niuatoputapu, Government conveyed its utmost gratitude to him, and this sentiment will always be there. At the same time, he was advised that there was no shipping service yet to Niuatoputapu. Whilst awaiting a ship, Cyclone Rene struck Tonga and Reverend Pierce kindly offered to transfer his relief donation to Vava'u instead.
Unfortunately, there were undue delays in the processing of its customs clearance, and following the occurrence of Cyclone Tomas in Fiji in early March, Rev. Pearce then redirected his relief assistance to Fiji.
May I reiterate that the inconvenience caused to Rev. Pearce is sincerely regretted. Furthermore, that Tonga will always be grateful to him for his great kindness not only to Tonga, but to all people in need of assistance everywhere.
Yours sincerely,
Paula P. Ma'u
Acting CEO
Ministry of Information and Communications
paulm [at] mic [dot] gov [dot] to