Challenge for Tonga’s AntiCorruption Commissioner
Understanding where culture and corruption needs to be separated will be the biggest challenge for Tonga’s first anti-corruption commissioner. James Christopher LaHatte, a New Zealand barrister and mediator, was confirmed to lead the Tongan Anti-Corruption Commission in Parliament last week. LaHatte was appointed to the role King Tupou VI in a Privy Council meeting. He told RNZ Pacific what might be right culturally in Tonga maybe deemed as corruption somewhere else. “I think the first thing I have to do is spend a lot of time listening to people,” he he said.
“I need to learn how Tongan culture is different from what I’ve learned in New Zealand and other places and put that cultural understanding into the concept of what is corruption.
“Because I’m very conscious, that behaviour that might be seen as culturally appropriate, would be seen in other places as corruption.”
He used the widely accepted “gift giving” culture in Pacific nations as one example that he said needed to be looked at.
“So gift giving, for example, I’m aware is a big part of Tongan culture,” he said.
“There’s going to be a line sometimes between what is appropriate and culturally required, and something which goes beyond that.
“So I’m going to have to learn a lot about how these things work, so that I have an understanding of what is corruption and what is culturally safe.”
The culture of gift giving was recently part of public discussions during court cases where a number of Tongan MPs lost their seats because they were found guilty of what were actions of gift giving during election campaigns.
He said there would be a lot of education and awareness work done so people understand what corruption is and how that is defined. “I think my primary role is really one of education so that people understand what should and shouldn’t happen. And then there’s an element of deterrence as well,” he said.
“From time to time, it would be necessary to take steps to identify corrupt practices, and to ensure that that’s made known and publicised so it is discussed at all levels so that people understand whether that should or should not have happened.”