Copra Tax In Tonga

How Funds are to be Used

Letter to the Editor I WOULD draw attention to a mis leading statement in the editorial comment in the November, “PIM,” and should be grateful if you would make the necessary correction.

This comment suggests that the Gov ernment of Tonga is making unjustifiable profit from copra. Such is not the case.

The only money received by this Govern ment from copra production is 30/- per ton export duty, and wharfage of 1/- per ton.

The Copra Board levies 10/- a ton on all copra, and a further 30/- a ton is held back for a “vessel purchase fund.”

An order for the ship has already been placed with a ship-building firm in Suva, and the vessel when commissioned, will be used for bringing in copra from the many scattered islands of the group. She will thus be of inestimable value to pro ducers, who at the moment are often forced to bring their copra as much as 50 miles in small cutters, to a buying centre.

Funds which accumulate from the levy of 10/- will be used exclusively for the assistance of copra production in Tonga.

One of the main objects is the erection of communal hot-air driers for the use of producers, small and large.

Accurate accounts are kept by the Copra Board of each individual purchase of copra, however small, and surpluses which accrue are distributed annually pro rata to producers throughout the Kingdom. Deferred payments for the years 1942-43 were £l/13/4 per ton, and for 1944, £2/6/8 per ton.

You will see from the foregoing that the Copra Board acts in the best interests of producers and the industry generally in Tonga, and that money received by Government from copra is small, and quite legitimate, I am etc.

J. N. Brownlees.

Secretary, Tonga Copra Board.

Nukualofa, 18/12/46.