Background - The Ministry of Information and Communications
On 1 May
2009, the Ministry of Information and Communications was established following
the appointment by His Majesty' Government of its first ever Minister for
Information and Communications, Hon. ‘Eseta Fusitu'a, on 30 April 2009.
Its two departments, Information and Communications, then both formerly under
the administration of the Prime Minister's Office prior to 2000, in response to
the Government's reform
policy in the Communications sector and promoting transparency in Government,
resulted in the creations of a Department of Communications (2000) and a
Ministry of Information in 2007.
GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES - A History
Like other new portfolios set up by Government of Tonga (GOT) to boost transparency and accountability as part and parcel of the Reform programs and to further the GOT's century-old endeavors to educate and inform it's population a short outline of Government's incentive for transparency and good governance is shown below:
1870s - The first ever newspaper, Po'opo'i was published by
the government to inform the populace
1945 - A weekly News-sheet (A4 size) letter was
distributed from the Prime Minister's Office containing mostly world news
1961 - The Tonga Broadcasting Commission (Radio Tonga) first came into
operation on 4 July 1961, after 4-months on-air trials were successful
1964 - The Tonga Chronicle first went into
print weekly and later evolved as a bi-lingual tabloid newspaper
1990 - Information Unit - This was set up as part of the Prime
Minister's Office for the sole purpose of disseminating of Government news and
information
2007 - A ministerial portfolio for Information was created for new
Minister, Hon. Afu'alo Matoto which evolved from the PMO Information Unit
2009 - The Department of Communications of the Prime Minister's Office
and the Information Department previously combined with the Ministry of Public
Enterprises merged into the new Ministry of Information and Communications,
following the appointment of first minister for MIC, Hon. 'Eseta Fusitu'a.
A REGULATING BODY FOR COMMUNICATION SERVICES
To find out more information about the Ministry of Information & Communications, please download a Free Brochure here.
