Editor's Comment by Pesi Fonua

Tonga needs leadership to develop its economy - leadership with a vision to free itself from relying on aid donors to prop-up its struggling economy.

Tonga's efforts to merge its economy with the outside world entered a new phase in 2010 when it embarked on a political reform to make its system more democratic and introduced a new system of government.

The rush to change the political system and to introduce a new system of government in 2010 was an effort to weather the waves of globalization – bringing capitalism, privatization, digital technology and the free flow of information, western democratization, Free Trade, and the harmonization of custom tariffs to Tonga – the rapid changes affecting our lives and challenging our way of looking at the world.

Unfortunately for Tonga, our politicians appear to have lost the plot, and instead of seizing the opportunity to move with the waves of globalisation that have washed over our shores, during the past three years our government and our parliament under our new system of government has been distracted by the settling of personal grudges by our political leaders. We have had members of parliament crossing the floor, and annually we have had new ministers changing within new ministries. We have spent millions to investigate how the Government's multi-million loan from China was spent, an exercise that in the end has been left hanging in parliament with no solution in sight. To top up the confusion, a motion for a vote of no confidence on the Prime Minister and his Cabinet was presented to the House, and with a few cross-overs by Cabinet Ministers, and by People's Representatives for a motion that ended up being just more waste of time and money.

As Tonga tries to get its new political system to function properly, the need for visionary leadership to get the economy onto a firm footing becomes more urgent.

Concern

It should be a cause for concern that the Asian Development Bank and the IMF forecasted recently that the Tongan economy has been undermined by “structural impediments”, and that our external and fiscal imbalances will grow, while Tonga’s economic growth will decline from 0.5% in 2013, to 0.3% in 2014.

The question now is what can Tonga do to turn around its declining growth? What steps need to be taken to attract investors to establish businesses and create jobs to activate a flow of cash earnings to Tongan homes?

Three years after our major political overhaul in 2010, the economic statistics show that we have become over-reliant on aid donors and development partners to keep our nation afloat.

The term “Budget support funding” became part of the National Budget in the 2011-12, and now it looks like it is going to be a part of that mix for a few years to come, supporting the salaries of civil servants. The dangerous situation that we have put ourselves in is that we are heavily reliant on aid donors and development partners for keeping the government running.

So far, the major foreign capital that Tonga has been able to attract is also coming from aid donors and development partners to construct infrastructure projects.

It is clear that Tonga remains unattractive to foreign investors – while local businesses fail to grow. In such an environment for government to maintain a 15% consumption tax requirement on investment capital input is shocking.

Tonga's journey of westernization began, about 161 years ago when Tupou I decided that the way forward for Tonga was to accept Christianity, introduce a constitution, with an economy that was based on Tongans owning a piece of land where a man could grow coconuts to make copra for export, and grow food crops for his family – with the aim of self-sufficiency.

But later, when the country was in debt the British took Tonga as a British Protectorate taking charge of its economic and foreign relation affairs.

Tonga's British Protectorate status ended in 1973, when Tonga took full control of its international relations and economic affairs.

Since 1973 we have been fully responsible for the situation that we find our country in today. Right now we need a leader with a wide vision to think about the future and find different directions - other than just looking for an aid donor or a development partner.