12 Oct 2005

Tongan MPs query lack of audit reports

4:25 pm on 12 October 2005

Tonga's People's Representatives have raised questions in Parliament over the failure of the Government to table the annual auditor reports for the past three years.

The Deputy Prime Minister, Cecil Cocker, told the House the report for 2004 is ready.

But the Ha'apai Peoples Representative, Uliti Uata, and the Tongatapu Representative, Akilisi Pohiva, asked the Deputy Prime Minister about the whereabouts of the reports from 2001 to 2003.

The government was also asked why there has been no report tabled on the country's trust fund since 2001.

People's Representative, Clive Edwards, says the law requires the government to table a report on the Trust Fund as well as from all government private enterprises.

Mr Edwards said the government is pouring millions of dollars into a Tongan corporation based in Hawaii but no reports had been tabled.