Transcript
MELE 'AMANAKI: The accusation is very serious and very general also but given the seriousness of the accusation, it is unfounded and needs evidence to back up his comments.
KORO VAKA'UTA: Is it something that you find hard to believe or this something is something that could exist?
M'A: Of course everywhere in the public service around the world there are shortfalls of some people but not all the senior people or officials are corrupted and this is why I said that his comments are very general and he has been accusing the public servants since his first term in 2015 and working together with him I had always advised him that he needs to have evidence of the accusations he has.
KV: He has also pointed to senior officials or people in the public service, not really agreeing with some of his politics and possibly stopping some of the progress and implementation of policy. What do you think about that?
M'A: The law for the public service, public servants must be apolitical, meaning they shouldn't bring their political views into the public service or to the workplace. Unfortunately democracy here in Tonga is fairly new and everyone is still trying to learn. The prime minister and his cabinet needs to understand not to bring in their political views into the public service or into office. Once they enter office then they should look at everybody in the general view with the view to move the country forward. Everybody has their own political views and Tonga being very small you can actually know who or where one's political side. So sometimes as a senior officer, your political side really stands out so when the prime minister and his ministers come into office, they know where your political view lies. So immediately they look at that person in a negative way. I believe that two CEOs last year, two ministers had difficulty with them but there are 12 other CEOs. You can't generalise that they can't work together with all of them. They should be able to work together. It's the performance of the CEOs or the senior officials, there is a way in the legislation where they will report. In the first term of the prime minister, he has had court cases, more than the former governments in 20 years, he has court cases with the public servants. These court cases would have been avoided if the prime minister and his ministers used the law to resolve the issues instead of making unlawful decisions.
KORO VAKA'UTA: How would you describe the relationship between the prime minister and the public service?
M'A: Before he became prime minister, the prime minister had always had the view that the public servants performance was bad and under-performed but I believe if he has some plans to improve the public service and come and implement that, then we can see there is a reason for his complaint. If the policies are already there and he is coming and said that the public servants, that the policies are not being implemented, what does he plan to do? He needs to have some guidelines of the work that he wants to do. In the last term there wasn't any guidelines, a written one. A prime minister and his cabinet, once they come into office, they should have a plan laid out in writing what they want to do.
