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A group of Manukau City councillors have put the brakes on a plan to help rebuild the riot-damaged Tongan capital.
A special council meeting next Tuesday will consider whether to send four planning staff members to help further redevelopment of Nuku'alofa, sections of which were razed during riots
in November.
Manukau City's director of community, Ian Maxwell, went to Nuku'alofa last month for five days to provide a scoping report following pleas from Tongan Prime Minister Feleti Sevele to Manukau Mayor Sir Barry Curtis.
Sir Barry said the acting chief executive, Phil Wilson, insisted before the trip that the Tongan Government pay for it.
However, the group of councillors who petitioned for the special meeting claimed they had not been notified of this, nor was there a council meeting before he was sent.
They also claimed the council's resources were already stretched and could be better used in the city itself.
Howick ward representative Jami-Lee Ross said Sir Barry and the acting chief executive had "acted outside their authority".
"It's really not the role of the local authority to be enacting foreign policy on behalf of the New Zealand Government. Our role is to provide services to our residents and ratepayers of Manukau City. It certainly does not extend to helping rebuild the capital city of Tonga."
Sir Barry said he had told Prime Minister Helen Clark of his intentions, and councillors and community board members had been informed in early December of the idea to send Mr Maxwell. The only feedback had been positive.
"I have to say that I'm very supportive of the staff being utilised by the chief executive officer on a paid basis by the Tongan Government to facilitate the request, especially when a large number of people in our community are Tongan," he said.
The request was "a very small-scale initiative" compared to the projects under way in Manukau, and a contracted American company would finish the work once the planning study had been completed.
Otara ward councillor Su'a William Sio believed Manukau should be strengthening its strategic and economic relationships with Pacific Island nations, given the city's huge Polynesian population.
"We've already done that and signed a memo of co-operation with the Cook Islands, Samoa and with Tahiti, and I see no reason why we should not be providing the support, expertise and advice to Tonga.
"There are two or three Manukau City councillors who have traditionally opposed anything to do with Maori or Pacific peoples, so I am not at all surprised by their opposition."
