Tonga’s Ministry of Information
provides information for the people of Tonga locally and internationally. It promotes
transparency and accountability of its operations, activities, policies and programs
by providing information in many specific areas. The ministry thrives for
excellence and pride itself with making information available and its
cornerstone of good governance is providing universal access to information and
greater public awareness.
The Ministry of Information public
service provided for the people any necessary information required. Tonga is in
a process of shifting to e-government which is the current services that the
ministry is challenging itself with. Other governmental departments are all
following suit spearheaded by this ministry as well as providing consultancy to
the other ministries. It is the ministry’s hope that within the next two to
three years, this migration can be finalized. The Government of Tonga’s
information scattered throughout various departments such as the Palace Office,
Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of Communication, and others and the Ministry
of Information is slowly taking away bit by bit information from all these
ministries and consolidating it to the ministry of information’s jurisdiction.
The Ministry of Information has
specific areas that required specific policies in place since this is the
newest and newly added ministry to the governmental portfolios. Areas in need
of policy formulation of existing services are; internet, social media,
television, newspaper, telephones, mobile phones, handheld devices, radio,
tele-radio communication, yellow pages & white pages on phone book,
archives, almanac, printed mediums, governmental departments’ information,
words of mouth, traditional sources, outdoor billboards and myths and legends.
The discovery that the ministry is
in need of public service policy was a concern during my tenure as an intern.
The assistance provided by the ASU intern was delivering this ministry with an
in-depth and comprehensive policy guideline called “A Better Informative Tonga”.
The short term plan is formulating a better working policy for the ministry in
order for the long term goal of migrating to e-government to provide all the
necessary information for not only the people of Tonga but also to future
stakeholders and investors who are looking into investing capital in Tonga.
This sounds like the most amazing experience, and honestly I would love to experience it myself. As a student and even more as an intern we are learning as much of the real world as we can, it is awesome when you can see a different side and teach those that you are working with a new skill and way of thinking! I look forward to hearing about your overall experience and one day visiting Tonga.
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