Tonga Deserves Better Featured
Editor,
If the Cabinet Minister Lavulavu was an ordinary Tongan public servant, he would have been arrested by the Police and charged with corruption and other criminal offences. But because he is a minister of the Crown, the Prime Minister of Tonga, ‘Akilisi Pohiva, together with his cabinet and his followers, voted to set him free.
The most alarming thing about the 12 members of parliament who voted to set their friend free is that the Finance Minister, for example, had said that ‘there is a case to answer’ yet there he was voting against the impeachment. The Prime Minister, according to reports from Parliament, had wanted to deal with Lavulavu but what he does not realise is that within just 10 months of his taking office, most of us Tongans in Tonga and abroad have lost our trust in his leadership. He is a man with so many different faces and the most prominent mask on public display at the moment is nepotism. There is nothing more revolting in democratic society than a nepotistic public figure who proactively promotes his own brood whilst in a position of trust.
Not so long ago, the same members of parliament voted to legalise nepotism. And now they strike the people of Tonga again with their misguided allegiance to their friend. They have all deserted the moral code of good governance in order to cover up criminal offences being committed in high office; but in doing so, they work against the people who voted them into parliament, against the King and country, against Law and Order and worst of all, against the principles of democracy which they used to get themselves elected during the last election.
On the 22nd October 2015, the deputy prime minister of Vanuatu, Moana Carcasses, was sentenced to four years in jail for bribery and corruption, joining 13 other MPs — or half of the nation's government - in prison. Vanuatu democracy has progressed to a much higher level than some of her neighbours including Tonga. It is a sign of a civilised democratic society which possesses a clear understanding of what good governance is all about.
The Ministry of Infrastructure officials who brought the petition to parliament must now take their case to Court. Don’t be afraid of PM ‘Akilisi Pohiva and his friend Lavulavu, they are only in power for a limited period of time, but Tonga and her people will be there till the end of time. Tonga deserves better.
Faka’apa’apa atu,
Senolita Swan
