Publisher Hopes For A Change of Heart

While Kalafi Moala's Taimi o Tonga may have fallen short of the new media legislation's definition of accurate, fair and balanced journalism, Pesi Fonua's Vava'u Press has run foul of the law's foreign ownership criteria. Fonua and his New Zealand-born wife Mary own the company, and while Mary has been living with her husband in Nuku'alofa for all these years, her 49 percent equity of Vava'u Press is way over the 20 percent ownership limit foreigners are entitled to have under the media legislation.

Vava'u Press was thus not granted a licence to operate.

Twenty-one years after building their publishing company whose flagship product Matangi Tonga is a widely read, full-colour quarterly news magazine that had support from the government all through the past two decades, the 20 percent ceiling on foreign investment has only left the couple bewildered.

"We are the only company in the whole of Tonga that is in publishing. What I could not understand was that out of the blue they made this legislation reducing the percentage of foreign ownership to 20 percent when in every other business in this country, foreigners are allowed to hold majority shares, even 100 percent shares in hotels, banks, construction companies, all those industries which have a turnover of millions of dollars."

With government denying Vava'u Press a licence to operate, the publishing of Lulutai, the in-flight magazine of Royal Tongan Airlines, and a new look Eva magazine that has just had a target shift from tourists to teenagers, are now in doubt.

Both are products of Fonua and Mary's company. Vava'u Press also publishes tourist brochures, maps and books, and it has been a major player in nurturing the fledgling Tongan literature industry.

"Now to make that happen, there's a desperate need for money to publish more books," said Fonua. "It is very expensive. This is why we can't just understand the reason for the 20 percent foreign ownership criteria. It is not because there are hundreds of publishing companies, struggling and fighting for the market. We are the only one."

Fonua is hopeful the government will re-consider its stance and examine in greater detail the implications of its decision.

That is why we've tried to talk to them, to try and get them to have a proper look at it because we don't believe that they really had a good look at it.

"I think it's something that just happened and they rushed it through and never really considered the negative implications of this legislation." Legal action or moving overseas are of course options opened to Vava'u Press. But Fonua said the company would only pursue these as a last resort. "We can move the company out of here but that's not the reason why it was built in the first place. It wasn't established so we could go and operate in Fiji or Samoa. So it's a very difficult situation for us. We understand the law has been passed and a law is a law, so we're talking to people who make the laws to have some understanding."