From the House, by Pesi Fonua

As members of Tonga's Parliament try to navigate their way through political reform with their newly inherited political control, they have found themselves struggling with the fact that the auditor general is under the jurisdiction of the Speaker and the Parliament itself.

Concern that the auditor general had recently become a member of the House Finance and Public Accounts Committee, was expressed by a member of the committee itself, Lord Vaea. He was concerned about a possible conflict of interest. Lord Vaea was then assured by the Deputy Prime Minister, that the auditor general did not have a voting right on the committee.

But next on the agenda of the House was a report from that same Standing Committee on Finance and Public Accounts, relating to how over $1 million aid funding from New Zealand was spent on Tonga's Constitutional and Political Reform Program.  Then the proceedings got into a tangle over a matter of procedure in determining who should get the report of the auditor general first.

The Standing Committee are the chairman, 'Aisake Eke; and members Lord Lasike, Lord Tu'i'afitu, Lord Vaea, Lord Fakafanua, Hon. Sunia Fili, 'Akilisi Pohiva, 'Uliti Uata, Dr Sitiveni Halapua, Mo'ale Finau, and the auditor general, Pohiva Tu'i'onetoa.

The chairman, 'Aisake Eke, presented their report after lunch on Wednesday February 7. He started by reading out a report of the auditor general on a special account that was set up by the Prime Minister's Office to finance working programs, such as the Constitutional and Political Reform Program.

The Deputy Prime Minister Hon. Samiu Vaipulu abruptly stopped 'Aisake from reading the report, and queried why the auditor general's report had not been presented to the House. He pointed out that the proper procedure was for the report to be presented to the House first, and if was passed, then the House could table it into its Standing Committee of Finance and Public Accounts.

'Aisake Eke and the Speaker, who is also a member of the committee, pointed out that both the report of the auditor general and the report of an independent auditor of the New Zealand aid fund were included in the report.

The Deputy Prime Minister's queried why the auditor general's report had gone to the committee and not to the House, and he alluded that the committee was operating independently from the House.

Under that note, speculation arose that a member of the committee had leaked the report to the news media and to a local newspaper.

The move by the Deputy Prime Minister for the auditor general's report to be presented separately to the House and to be passed, before the House looked at the report of the Standing Committee, was verbally agreed to, before the House closed on Wednesday February 7.

Yesterday, February 8, after the auditor general's report on the New Zealand aid fund for the Constitutional and Political Reform Program was presented to the Whole House Committee, it was voted on and passed without any debate.

China loan

The House moved on to discuss the Report from the Standing Committee on Finance and Public Accounts.

'Akilisi Pohiva, a member of committee, made a presentation on how a $40 million loan from China for road construction was spent. He said that the loan was between the Tonga government and the government of China, and that the sub-contracting out of the road works was handled by the Ministry of Works. He claimed that the former Minister of Works, Lord Nuku, had sub-contracted the work to himself.

Both the Deputy Prime Minister, Hon Samiu Vaipulu, and the Minister of Justice, Hon. Clive Edwards, objected to the presentation, claiming that it was a contempt of parliamentary privileges by the member to make accusations against people who were not in the House to defend themselves. Hon. Samiu Vaipulu commented that 'Akilisi had published in his paper a claim that he and the former Minister of Works had divided the loan money.

They pleaded with the Speaker to stop this kind of presentation in the House.

After lunch, the chairman of the Finance Committee, 'Aisake Eke, continued with the presentation of how, according to the auditor general, more than $400,000 of the more than a $1 million aid fund from New Zealand and Australia for the reform, which was deposited into a special account of the Prime Minister's Office could not be accounted for.

The independent auditor that was brought in by the New Zealand government had a different finding that about $200,000 of the $1 million could not be accounted for, and their conclusion was that there was no fraud, but it was due to accounting errors. He pointed out that the New Zealand government also stated that they would never again allocate aid money this way.

The Deputy Prime Minister said that the finding of the committee was imbalanced and he moved for the committee to take back the report, do some more work and then resubmit it to the House. Specifically, he pointed out that they had interviewed the auditor general (a member of the committee) but they never interviewed anyone from the Prime Minister's Office, the CEO or the clerks.

When the Speaker called for the House to close at 4:00pm there was no decision on whether the committee should take back their report, or for the House to proceed with the report. Today, Thursday February 9, is the last working day of the week for the House, and the Speaker has hinted that the House might close for a break.

No objections

This morning, Thursday February 9, the House voted to pass the Report from the Standing Committee on Finance and Public Accounts, with no objections.