Bookshop opens new shop in CBD six-years after 16/11 riots [1]
Friday, November 16, 2012 - 21:13. Updated on Monday, September 9, 2013 - 18:40.
The Friendly Islands Bookshop today moved back to the Tungi Colonnade building in the Nuku'alofa Central Business District, exactly six-years to the day since the riots and fire on November 16, 2006 destroyed the shop, warehouse and stock amounting to $1.2 million pa'anga in unrecoverable losses.
The President of the Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga Rev Dr 'Ahio opened the bookshop, located on the ground floor of the new building. The bookshop moved back to its old location on what was formerly the Tungi Arcade destroyed during the 16/11 riots.
Sela Latailakepa, the Manager of FIBS said, it was on this exact day on November 16, that FIBS experienced 100 percent destruction of its warehouse and shop amounting to losses excess to $1.2 million, on a day everyone in Tonga began to wonder, "what they had done."
She said, after the riots the loss was beyond comprehension and FIBS had made its return back to Tungi Colonnade, a site it had left in despair, its books a pile of ashes.
"But as it limped out of Nuku'alofa six-years ago, today the FIBS has limped back into town, bent with the onslaught of a huge yet unrecovered loss."
FIBS is owned by the Free Wesleyan Church had five fires in its 40-years of operation and the major one being on November 16. "When our staff met a few days after the riot, we did not know how to start talking, gone were the books, stationery and our livelihoods," she said.
The FIBS Board then led by former President Dr 'Alifeleti Mone, decided that FIBS business was not going under and it would not lay off its staff and sought to assist its immediate recovery. The bookshop then moved to a temprary location on Salote Road at Ma'ufanga on November 30, 2006 and restarted with only tables, benches and locally bought merchandise. A month later it experienced one of its lowest Christmas and Back to School sales ever, she said.
Battle
Sela said their battle with their insurer National Pacific Insurance "came to a most disappointing end six-years after the devastation, whereas there is noone to blame.
" But there is someone to bear the punishment and that has been us we the affected businesses, the sacrifical lambs of 16/11."
She said the insurance policies they took were a risk in themselves.
But as a true member of the Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga the bookshop had an obligation to its members, customers, suppliers, stakeholders and the people of Tonga. "We were called to help the church and despite the trials, the vision must and will be fulfilled," she said.
The bookshop started from humbling beginnings after being founded in 1972, in a small room in the church office with a vision to support the church and the people of Tonga, with the provision of reading materials and stationery.
Rev Dr 'Ahio said, he was happy to see that the bookshop had survived the test of times and had moved back to the Tungi Colonnade to continue the vision it was initially set up to do.
Present at the ceremony were Rev Dr T. Mohenoa Puloka, Rev Lopeti Taufa, Rev Paul Swadling the Secretary of the Connexional Church of Australia, customers and business stakeholders.
The FWC youth choir of Pelehake entertained the small gathering with Christmas songs and Tongan hymns.