PACIFIC SCOOP
Dr Teena Brown Pulu with her first book, Shoot the Messenger. PHOTO/AUT
A suppressed report on the reconstruction of the Nuku’alofa central business district in Tonga – devastated by riots in 2006 – has been exposed in a controversial new book.
The author, Dr Teena Brown Pulu, a lecturer at AUT University, launched the book, Shoot the Messenger , at the Manukau Campus.
Dr Brown Pulu was authorised to write a report by the Tongan Prime Minister, Lord Tui’vakano, on this reconstruction project in April 2011. But its release was later blocked with the report being considered “inadequate and unreliable”.
However, Dr Brown Pulu rejects this official view. She believes the report’s findings not being made public were politically motivated.
“There was a set of assumptions made by the Prime Minister’s advisers that the Nuku’alofa reconstruction project had missing funds and overpriced and substandard buildings,” she said.
“After I had completed the research, the evidence gathered was to the contrary. The allegations made by government against the former administration and the construction companies working on the project were simply that – unsubstantiated allegations.”
The riots
Arson during the November 16, 2006, riots destroyed about 80 percent of Tonga’s CBD in the capital of Nuku’alofa. A year later the Tongan government signed a multimillion pa’anga loan from China and reconstruction began.
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