04th September 2018 The Minister for Revenue and Customs and Acting Minister for the Ministry of Finance and National Planning Hon. Mateni Tapueluelu opened the Tonga Public Financial Management (PFM) Symposium under the theme ‘Strengthening Public Financial Management (PFM) for better Service Delivery’ this morning at Tanoa International Dateline Hotel.
The three-day event is funded by the Government of Australia through the Pacific Association of Supreme Audit Institutions (PASAI).
The PFM Reform Roadmap was approved in 2014 and will end in June 2019. The roadmap provides the framework to prioritize sequence and collaborate on PFM reform.
In the opening address Hon. Tapueluelu said the symposium will:
- Enhance awareness and understanding of the roadmap
- Improve understanding of how PFM can strengthen service delivery
- Improve awareness and understanding of the roles that the public sector and other stakeholders in promoting good PFM and
- Facilitate agreement on an updated roadmap to guide collaboration into the future
He said that although a lot of progress had been made in terms of achieving these objectives of maintaining fiscal discipline improving efficiency, in allocations and receiving value for money more work is still needed.
“There is still a lot more work to be done and the current Government of Tonga recognizes that we cannot do this work alone and that a strategic and collaborative effort is needed with each of you playing a vital role.”
“We need constant spiritual reinforcement, we need to get a better feel of the challenges and hardships that our people are facing, we need our businesses to flourish, we need a level of resources and technical expertise to improve PFM that are not always available locally, finally we need to improve the way in which our policies and programs are communicated to our people.”
He told the participants that this symposium has served well over the last four years, and the government’s hope that it will continue to do so.
“It is the current government’s hope that this symposium will help promote and embed this strategic and collaborative effort to improve public financial management. When PFM is good, when things work as they should, our people thrive.”
Australian High Commissioner to Tonga His Excellency Mr Andrew Ford said the Government of Australia has recognized the importance of PFM and want to support Tonga to achieve the broad objectives.
“Through PASAI we are also supporting Tonga’s Ministry of Finance and National Planning co-facilitate this PFM symposium. PFM can be a hard sell but it’s critical to building public trust in Government and the average person on the street wants to be confident that the money they are paying through taxes is being used properly to provide services to Tongan people.”
He also encouraged participants to make the most of the opportunity to get together and share experiences.
The symposium is organized in collaboration with the Australian and New Zealand Governments, the Pacific Association of Supreme Audit Institutions (PASAI) and the Pacific Islands Financial and Technical Assistance Center.
ENDS
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