By Mataeliga Pio Sioa
To see your elderly parents shivering in the cold winter floor in a public place is not what you want to see. Not in an impersonal place like the Auckland Airport.
The same can be said about your infant children not yet strong enough to endure the elements.
What makes it even harder is when it happened while sitting next to a warm room with chairs to sit on for their comfort and wellbeing.
To also think they have a right to be in that room makes where they were left crying out for comfort a disgrace not to mention inhuman.
Even with the rules of opening times for the use of the room does not make the health risks and the indignity to the 100 plus Samoans any less degrading.
As a loving, responsible adult you will go to every extreme to see that does not happen to your own precious ‘blood and bones’.
What happened at the start of the week in Auckland is the despicable result of spiteful vindictive politics that continues to divide this country.
Should we or should we not have our own aircraft?
The FAST Government is saying no. We have big debts on the national carrier Samoa Airways to pay off.
The opposition HRPP is reeling and retching in disgust at the juvenile lack of long-term vision and wisdom by the current holders of power.
The former Government did bring in an aircraft before they were replaced.
The aircraft was a hop away from landing at Faleolo when the new Government froze the deal and sent it back.
This is where the debate simmers for now with no real ending in sight.
Since the option to do without an aircraft started the benefits for Samoa and especially the travelers have not been very encouraging.
Airfares are reportedly doubled, or tripled. Samoa must be turning into a gold mine for outside carriers.
The opposition leader made the point that the timing on the use of the aircraft they leased would have cleared out by now whatever debt by Samoa Airways with the surge in demand for travel since the re-opening of borders.
Carriers flying into Samoa like Air New Zealand, Qantas and Fiji Airways are digging and reaping deeply from our travel routes.
With the flights timed to their convenience it is a rare luxury to be earning at their own comfort.
Tottering Samoan elderlies and the tender young ones is not their problem if the flight arrived early.
So what if these people are forced to curl up into human balls to keep warm on a frozen airport floor far away from the comforts of home in Apia?
The busy holiday season is only weeks away.
Tills will be ringing in not just for the spirit of the festive season but the foreign airlines flying hundreds of holiday makers in and out of Samoans in the next few coming months.
Are we going to hear anytime soon, preferably before the end of 2022, if we are getting any aircraft or not?
If Government wants to concentrate on paying off the loans how soon will that end. Will we still have any money left in the Central Bank vaults when everything is paid off?
Our national economy is reportedly contracting. To those of us with little understanding of the financial gibberish, it means we are not earning enough for our own essential keep.
Not having our own airlines to collect airfares from the hundreds of inbound visitors flying in to spend holiday savings in Samoa is not any help.
If sleeping on the freezing floor of Auckland Airport while on transit is going to scare holiday visitors away, it is loss of earnings as well our ‘contracting national economy’ badly needs.
If the present Government insists, we pay off our debt first then why not do what PM Tofilau did when the HRPP took over the Government?
The great man called on the country to sacrifice so we can re-build our economy. The word he made famous was ‘ositaulaga’.
The word became a national rallying cry that gave birth to 40 years of uninterrupted reign by the HRPP.
In the 20 years Tuilaepa was Prime Minister, he transformed the ‘ositaulaga’ status of Samoa into ‘alalaga’ or celebration.
The economic success story of his leadership was the UN decision to promote Samoa from the lowly status of least developed country to a boastful developing country.
With over three years left to run of the FAST Government reign, our parents and children are made to sleep on frozen floors in a foreign country.
It may be worth noting too that our PM is already going around on a wheel chair.
For us the masses our economic options are narrowing very quickly we need to do a lot of praying to our soon to be born saviour.
‘Lord save us from another run of ‘ositaulaga’.