The TASANOC members who were disqualified before the election of new officials last month were right to be unhappy, Tongan New Zealand-based lawyer Sione Fonua said today.
Fonua said something was not right with TASANOC’s election, according to its constitution, although he did not detail what he thought went wrong.
He said there was something wrong with his own nomination to the election and he had e-mailed TASANOC and pointed out the mistake.
However, Fonua said he accepted their wrong decision as he considered that it was important they should move forward and do the work for the Games.
Fonua said he was not one of those who were seeking legal action against TASANOC because of their disqualification before the elections.
Kaniva News has previously reported that 11 members of TASANOC were disqualified before the election, including Sione Fonua, Lord Vaea, Semisi Sika, Emeline Tuita, Timote Katoanga, Ahongalu Fusimalohi, Siosaia Fonua, Michael O’Shanessy, Leafa Wawryk and Paea Wolfgramm.
Emeline was supposed to stand against Lord Sevele in her position as Vice President Finance. When she was disqualified Lord Sevele became the only candidate for the election,
Lord Vaea was re-elected because he was nominated through another position after he was disqualified.
Trust
As Kaniva News reported on June 26, there have been claims that the election was held illegally because it was held with 26 days’ notice instead of the 30 days required by TASANOC’s constitution.
Some of the disqualified members who talked to Kaniva News since the election said TASANOC should have followed its new constitution approved on May 19.
“How can the government trust them if they refuse to uphold their constitution?” one disqualified member said.
“We believe that the constitution is for protection, not convenience.
“We believed that an error was made in good faith in setting the date for the meeting, but it has to be acknowledged as an error and accepted that the only way forward is a fresh notice that complies with the constitution.
He said the election was held with 26 days’ notice instead of the 30 days required by the constitution. It did not matter that a previous meeting approved the meeting.
“Instead of admitting we could count to 30, we just ploughed on and created further breaches of the just approved constitution,” he said.
“It is very important for the national sporting federations to understand the potential consequences of this decision, which is why we sought to correct the error first to avoid the ramifications of a stubborn stance against the Constitution.
“We desired a fair election and one of the benefits of addressing the 30 day notice would have been to call for a new election process which we may or may not have benefited from.
“Instability in TASANOC is a significant issue for Government as a primary financier of Team Tonga to the Pacific Games, the Commonwealth Games and the Olympic Games and international competitions such as World Cup in Rugby and Rugby League.
“In pursuing further action, the primary purpose is not to be voted in, although we would welcome the opportunity to serve. It is to ensure we follow the Constitution to the letter and make sure the proper processes are carried for the benefit of all, not just a few.”
The main points
The TASANOC members who were disqualified before the election of new officials last month were right to be unhappy, Tongan New Zealand-based lawyer Sione Fonua said today.
Fonua said something was not right with TASANOC’s election.
A total of 11 members of TASANOC were disqualified before the election, including Sione Fonua, Lord Vaea, Semisi Sika, Emeline Tuita, Timote Katoanga, Ahongalu Fusimalohi, Siosaia Fonua, Michael O’Shanessy, Leafa Wawryk and Paea Wolfgramm.
There have been claims that the election was held illegally because it was held with 24 days’ notice instead of the 30 days required by TASANOC’s constitution.
A decade after their death in a California car crash, Prince Tu’ipelehake and his wife Princess Kaimana Fielakepa, are being mourned again in the country they set out to change.
The Prince, who won the hearts of commoners by leading a march on the royal palace to call for change, was in the United States to talk to the Tongan community there about the momentous changes that he envisaged for the kingdom.
He and his wife were due to meet with San Franciso Bay area Tongans, but on the night of July 5, 2006, as they were driving to the city by the bay, their car was hit by another vehicle which police alleged was involved in a high speed car chase.
The deaths of Prince Tu’ipelehake, Princess Kaimana and their driver, Vinisia Hefa, came just after Tonga had celebrated the birthday of the prince’s uncle, King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV. The king died soon afterwards.
The driver of the car which hit them, 18 year old Edith Delgado, was eventually sentenced to just two years’ jail for their deaths.
As a member of the royal family, the Prince was in a strong position to advocate for change, He was strongly supported by his wife, who held a postgraduate degree in foreign affairs and had worked in the kingdom’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Prince Tu’ipelehake used his position as a Noble MP and his contacts to bring pressure for change to bear. He famously urged the then Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, to use his influence to pressure the Tongan government to democratise its system of government.
He also became the first ever patron of the Human Rights and Democracy Movement.
In October 12, 2004 the Parliament passed a resolution to accept a submission from the Prince, known as Sione ʻUluvalu Ngū Takeivūlai Tukuʻaho, to set up the National Committee for Political Reform.
In picture, the Prince in the middle holding the white document, on his left is Dr ʻAna Taufeʻulungaki and Dr Sitiveni Halapua after the meeting in Otahuhu with the Tongan community, Dr Linitā Manuʻatu – Advisor for NZTSPR Inc (right). Photo/Kitekeiʻaho Tuʻakalau
Committee
The Prince was elected chair and his Deputy and adviser to the committee was Dr Sitiveni Halapua.
Although there were various movements in Tonga pushing for democratic political reform this was the first national committee recognised by the king, government, Parliament and the then Democratic Leader ‘Akilisi Pōhiva.
It was also the first time the public had been given the freedom to talk and ask questions about what they thought was the best to reform Tonga’s political system.
The committee’s mandate was to listen to the people, answer their questions and report it to the king, government and Parliament.
Dr Halapua told Kaniva News he admired the Prince’s willingness to listen to what the people said in meetings they conducted around the islands and villages and in Australia and New Zealand, as culturally it was not something normal for a Prince to do.
“When we began meeting with people his aims were not really clear to me and I didn’t know whether or not he had any personal agenda,” Dr Halapua said.
“But after a few meetings I really trusted that he really wanted to listen to the people and was prepared to accept what they wanted because he wanted a good political reform for Tonga.
“The Prince emphasised to the people in every meeting that the meetings they held were not a fono in which the chief just told the people to collect pigs and goods for their cultural responsibilities without their opinions.”
He said the Prince told the people these were meetings at which he wanted them to tell him and his committee what they wanted about a new political system for Tonga.
Halapua said during one meeting at Foa Island a man stood up and told the Prince he wanted to remove the nobility from Parliament.
“I sat there and wondered what his response would be,” Dr Halapua said.
However, he said the Prince responded confidently and coolly and told the man his concerns would be recorded in the report.
Halapua said he was glad that some of the work he and the Prince did in the committee was reflected in today’s Tonga’s democratic system.
This included the increasing the number of people’s representatives from nine to 17 and still keeping the number of nobles in parliament to nine.
The right of the Parliamentarians to elect the Prime Minister evolved from a recommendation from the committee that the king choose the Prime Minister after the general election and that the Prime Minister then choose his ministers from the elected MPs.
The report was finalised and collated by Dr Halapua after the death of the prince and his wife.
A copy was submitted to the King and the government. However, when it was submitted to Parliament Dr Halapua said the then Prime Minister, Lord Sevele, stopped it because he did not want it to be discussed in the House.
This led to democratic supporters and many who supported the political reforms marching to Parliament and holding meeting at Pangai Si’i to show their dissatisfaction that the report was not allowed to be discussed in Parliament.
Dr Halapua said he was really disappointed that the report was not discussed in the House.
The people’s meeting at Pangai Si’i led to the riots that burned down much of Nuku’alofa in 2006.
Dr Halapua told Kaniva News the riot was triggered by the people’s unhappiness at the suppression of the report.
The Prince second from left after the meeting with the Tongan community in West Auckland. Photo/Kitekeiʻaho Tuʻakalau
Aftermath
After the tragedy in California, the Melbourne Age declared that Tonga’s democracy movement had suffered a blow with the death of its “people’s prince.”
It described him as a “driving force” behind the democratic movement.
The Honolulu Advertiser wrote:
“In the painful aftermath of the recent deaths of Tonga’s King Tupou IV and Prince Tu’ipelehake, it is crucial that their vision for the South Pacific island nation’s future be remembered — and carried out.
“It is entirely appropriate that Tonga mourn the loss of King Tupou IV and Prince Tu’ipelehake. Ensuring their pro-democracy movement endures would indeed be a fitting legacy.”
And another American paper, the Deseret News carried a comment from Tongan publisher Pesi Fonua:
“His death really brought to the limelight this idea. And now people are really talking about it, trying to understand better what he was trying to do. His death really did a lot of good for what he wanted to happen.”
The Deseret News also commented:
“Some fear that with the death of the prince, the democracy movement will lose momentum. Who will take his place as a bridge between the royal family and the people?”
In picture, Dr ʻOkusitino Mahina, the Patron of New Zealand Tongan Society for Political Reform in Tonga, Josh Liavaʻa (President) and members in a farewell photo before Dr Mahina left for Tonga to attend the Prince and the Princessʻ funeral. Photo/Kite Tuʻakalau
Princess Kaimana
Princess Kaimana has been described as having a huge influence on the prince and his ideas.
She held an MA in Foreign Affairs from the Australian National University in Canberra and had worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Tongan High Commission in London.
Dr Sitiveni Halapua, Prince Tuʻipelehake’s deputy on the National Committee for Political Reform, told Kaniva News Princess Kaimana was a strong supporter of the Prince.
He said he believed the Prince changed his attitude towards the people and the nation because of the Princess.
Unfortunately, a decade later the political changes that have taken place in Tonga do not seem to have been enough to make room for women to be regularly elected to parliament.
No women were elected in the first democratic election in 2010, but the King appointed Hon. ‘Eseta Fusitu’a, who was made Information and Communications Minister.
The first woman elected to the Tongan Parliament was Justice Minister and Attorney General ‘Alisi Taumoepeau.
In the 2014 elections, which brought the Democrats to power, the Tonga Electoral Commission recorded 106 candidates, 16 of whom were women (15.09%). Slightly more than half of the 50,450 voters registered for the elections were women.
No women was elected to Parliament in 2014.
Last year the Minister of Internal Affairs Fe’ao Vakata told the United Nations Ministerial Roundtable on Transforming Politics and Public Life to Achieve Gender Equality in New York that his Ministry would support women who wanted to stand in the 2016 Local Governance Elections.
“We are going to roll out community education and support for women to get into these local governance positions as a way of encouraging and promoting women getting into the larger parliamentary seats by 2018,” Hon. Vakata said.
As Kaniva News reported earlier this year, the Town Officer of Taunga island in Vavaʻu is Mrs Nunia Lolohea.
There were two women Town Officers in Haʻapai – Pielina Moli and Pulotu Fonua.
When Tongan-born New Zealand MP Jenny Salesa visited Tonga in the wake of the 2014 election she said she was shocked to find so much opposition to women candidates came from other Tongan women.
Perhaps, a decade after the Princesses’ tragic death, it is time to ask whether Tongan society has moved on as much as its politics.
The main points
A decade after their death in a California car crash, Prince Tu’ipelehake and his wife Princess Kaimana Fielakepa, are being mourned again in the country they set out to change.
The prince, who won the hearts of commoners by leading a march on the royal palace to call for change, was in the United States to talk to the Tongan community there about the momentous changes he envisaged for the kingdom.
He was strongly supported by his wife, who held a postgraduate degree in foreign affairs and had worked in the kingdom’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
On the night of July 5, 2006, as they were driving to San Francisco, their car was hit by another vehicle and they and their driver were killed.
As tomorrow’s deadline looms for Cabinet to approve new pay scales for public servants, the government and the Public Service Association are at loggerheads, with both sides accusing the other of lying.
The PSA claims that it is hearing one thing from Cabinet and another from the Remuneration Authority and the Public service Commission, while the Authority claims the PSA is twisting the truth, being greedy and threatening strike action
The PSA is demanding that the government delay a new salary scheme for public servants until next January so that its members’ concerns can be addressed properly.
However, the Remuneration Authority says that it has asked Cabinet to approve its proposal from tomorrow, subject to confirmation from the Public Service Commission that ministries are able to implement a new management performance system in time.
PSA General Secretary Mele ‘Amanaki submitted a petition to Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pohiva yesterday outlining the association’s position.
‘Amanaki said the same request had been put to a meeting of the government’s remuneration authority on April 26 and they had been assured the workers concerns would be addressed.
Yesterday she said the PSA only found out on Monday that the new salary structure would be implemented tomorrow (July 1).
‘Amanaki alleged that Remuneration Authority chair Siosi Mafi had admitted during a meeting on June 17 that they had overlooked a lot of things in the review, but would not go back to the workers and tell them what they had done with their concerns as they were following Cabinet’s direction.
She said this, and other information about a proposed bonus system she claimed to have received from the CEO of the Public Service Commission, did not tally with what the PSA understood from its meeting with the cabinet on April 26.
“The PSA fully supports the implementation of the new salary structures, but would like to ensure that the review is done properly to avoid what happened in 2005,” ‘Amanaki said.
“The PSA will strive to keep their promise to the People of Tonga that there will be no more strikes and they will negotiate through consultation.”
But the remuneration Authority claims the PSA is misleading the Prime Minister and the public.
“Mele Amanaki’s continuing fear campaign using threats of a public strike is not constructive to the Government’s commitment to accountability to tax payers,” a statement from the Authority said.
“The truth is that ‘Amanaki wants a 9% Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for all public servants, costing the tax payers an estimate of$12.3 million, before the new salary structure is implemented.
“The results of the Remuneration Authority consultation will be submitted to the Public Service Commission today 30 June 2016, and thereafter to the Cabinet.
“These results will result in an update to the recommendations already submitted and approved for implementation by the Cabinet.”
The statement said ‘Amanaki had insisted the Authority tell her members individually whether their appeal for more pay had been successful before the submission to the Public Service Commission, but had refused to provide a list of those members.
A large number of public servants were not members of the PSA.
The main points
As tomorrow’s deadline looms for Cabinet to approve new pay scales for public servants, the government and the Public Service Association are at loggerheads, with both sides accusing the other of lying.
The PSA claims that it is hearing one thing from Cabinet and another from the Remuneration Authority and the Public service Commission, while the Authority claims the PSA is twisting the truth, being greedy and threatening strike action
The PSA is demanding that the government delay a new salary scheme for public servants until next January so that its members’ concerns can be addressed properly.
The Remuneration Authority says that it has asked Cabinet to approve its proposal from tomorrow, subject to confirmation from the Public Service Commission.
The Tongan 4,872 civil servants will receive their new pay scales on July 13 despite repeated protests by Tonga Public Service Association (PSA).
The new salary structure was approved by the Tongan Cabinet on April 13 to be implemented on July 1, 2016 in the government’s new budget.
“We are set to implement and first fortnightly schedule of the new remuneration to 13 July 2016”, Tonga’s Finance Secretary Tatafu Moeaki told Kaniva News this morning.
He said the new pay structure was first planned to be backdated to “2015 but was later revised in April-May 2016 to be effective from 1st July 2016″.
Meanwhile the PSA has submitted another petition in an attempt to postpone the new pay structure.
“The Secretary General of PSA submitted yesterday a petition to the Hon. Prime Minister requesting to defer the implementation of the new salary scales from the 01st July to the 01st January 2017 to facilitate the completion of the review to ensure that the concerns of the workers are addressed to reduce disappointments and expenses to Government if this review continues to next year as planned by the Remuneration Authority and the Public Service Commission”, a press release from PSA said this morning.
Last month the PSA challenged the introduction of the new structure and claimed it did not reflect the concerns and an agreement made after the civil service strikes of 2005.
It submitted a petition to the Prime Minister followed by several meetings with government authorities but now the government decided to go ahead with the new pay structure.
A 31-year-old Tongan man died after drowning on Saturday 25 in Utah in the United States.
The incident occurred at the Blackridge Reservoir in Herriman, police said.
According to local media the man was identified by police as Penoni Mounga, of Kearns.
Mounga, who was swimming with more than 30 family members at the reservoir, 15000 S. Ashland Ridge Drive, went underwater around 3:40 p.m., according to Unified Police Lt. Lex Bell.
The family had swum across the reservoir and was on the way back when Mounga fell behind and “just didn’t make it back,” Bell said.
A family member reported the Mounga’s disappearance, and Unified Fire Authority dive teams quickly began searching for him. Mounga had been underwater about 20 minutes by that time, police said.
Mounga’s body was recovered around 4:30 p.m. Drugs or alcohol were not factors in the incident, police said.
“We’ve had too many drownings — one is too many — but we’ve had a few this spring,” Bell said.
Swimmers should use flotation devices and keep someone within an arm’s reach when swimming, he said.
A 45-year-old man from Popua is being treated in hospital after his 39-year-old wife allegedly attacked and beat him with a piece of wood.
The victim’s condition was unknown.
Police said the couple had been drinking before the incident happened.
Police have arrested the wife and she remains in Police custody to appear in court.
The couple has 10 children, local media reported.
The reports said Police have revealed there were a number of similar incidents in Tonga in which the husbands had been beaten by their wives but they were not reported to Police.
According to the reports this is because of the stigma and embarrassment men may feel as victims of domestic violence.
The captain of the missing boat from Fonoifua has made contact with Police at 6pm today Tuesday 28, Tonga Deputy Police commissioner Pelenatita Feʻao has told Kaniva News this evening.
Feʻao said the captain Siua Moimoi talked to Police through a telephone call and said all 11 passengers aboard are safe and sound.
At the time of the contact Moimoi said they were in a location at seas between ʻEua and Tongatapu.
He said they could see the village of Navutoka in Tongatapu from their location, Feʻao said.
Moimoi said the engine of the boat experienced mechanical failure at times but he could fix it while they were struggling to reach Fāua wharf in Nukuʻalofa.
Feʻao said it appeared the boat somehow went astray while it was on its way to Fonoifua from Nukuʻalofa on June 27.
They were reported missing this morning after they failed to arrive at Fonoi at around 2am.
