Tonga's Deputy Prime Minister hits out at World Bank

Transcript

Tonga's Deputy Prime Minister has hit out at the World Bank for finalising a draft report on the Tonga transport industry without any consultation with him.

Samiu Vaipulu will meet New Zealand's foreign minister, Murray McCully, next week, over the ongoing dispute of the safety and certification of a plane gifted by China.

The World Bank says the report will be sent to the Tongan Prime Minister's office for feedback, and will be published by June the 1st.

Mr Vaipulu told Alex Perrottet he expected to meet with the reviewers earlier.

SAMIU VAIPULU: So far I have not spoken to the World Bank and I question their draft report. Because I am sure they should make the same report to every country that has the MA-60, to ground it. Not only Tonga, it's very very unfair on us.

ALEX PERROTTET: And what did the draft report say about the MA-60?

SV: They're saying it's not according to ICAO but I've got all what we did and done, according to ICAO. I will print it out and present it in New Zealand to Mr McCully.

AP: And you're saying, just to confirm, that it's unfair that they haven't spoken to you, and you're saying that you're not even sure that they visited Nuku'alofa?

SV: That's to confirm that I have not met them, they have not come here to ask me what we did and how we did it and it is very very unfair on us because they are not doing the same thing to every country that has MA-60s. I do think they are doing it because Tonga is so small.

AP: They would say they are doing because Tonga and New Zealand agreed to contract the World Bank to do a transport-wide review, which would obviously also include the MA-60 so, I guess they have received a brief to look at Tonga rather than other countries.

SV: To me, as minister of transport, they have not contacted me and they have not met me to give them the true picture of what we did and how we did it.

AP: A month ago in China, the airline grounded, I think it was six MA-60 planes because of another accident that happened in February. Does that concern you?

SV: We did the same thing here in Tonga and we had engineers here to look at what was being questioned in China and we got through all of that and we got it certified from China. That's the ICAO rules we use and we had an agreement with China to use their air worthiness and we grounded the MA-60 and we did all the checks that was needed.

AP: There is just a bit of cynicism that this aircraft has been the result of lots of accidents and China, they've now gifted some MA-60s to Nepal as well. There's cycnism that China is getting rid of these planes away to developing countries.

SV: If you look at the list of accidents for 2012, there's five ATRs, there was one MA-60 - that's runway - that's ICAO reports. Why is MA-60 marked but not the other aircraft?