By Mataeliga Pio Sioa
The World Bank forecast of a slow recovery for our national economy post-COVID-19 paints a hopeful promise for us.
Our return to economic strength is the slowest in the recovery wave predicted also for our Pacific Island neighbours. What is more important is we are going forward and that is a start.
The key word here is recovery. As long as the wheels are moving along so too are our hopes for better things ahead.
But hold on tight to that promise. Our journey to recovery is far from within reach any time soon.
We have been described as resilient and that is both to our credit and an inspiration, we should cling to whatever comes.
We do have some big obstacles to overcome.
Looming ahead of our laborious economic climb is an unprecedent 12 per cent inflation forecast ready to choke any progress we made.
But that may be the least of our worries.
Our worst setback is the current political instability that has lingered stubbornly going on 2 years since our general elections without any signs of going away.
We are in a dark tunnel of combative leadership at each other’s throat without any reconciliation light at the end of it.
Not even a flicker.
Huge chunks of good natured intentions in and outside Samoa with our diaspora, have already been ripped off not just in our economic hopes but national unity.
The FAST- Government economic policies since taking over the leadership role have been conflicting and doing more damage than good so far.
The one-million tala handouts to all the 51 electorates and the band-aid response with only a measly fraction of the promised amount paid out is cause for ridicule and embarrassment.
The thought of being taken for fools to win election votes, is driving the wedge of political divisions deeper, over unpaid handouts the FAST leadership sang sweetly about on the campaign trail.
Our tourism industry crashed when COVID-19 closed our borders. Fortunately, our RSE season workers scheme helped to ease the economic load.
Amidst, however, our economic balancing act to keep our nose above water Government suspended the scheme.
They may have a point due to the loss of our skilled labour force to higher income returns from the RSE, but the timing was impulsive.
It was also a direct violation of basic human rights for people to make their own employment choices regardless of the national demands.
Workers left empty handed after being denied better income for the care of their loved ones will fester until suitably remedied or compensated.
Once again, a thorn was stuck into the harmony of a united country with the costly loss of RSE contracts to rival labour forces in our neighbouring islands.
Hopefully the study review that forced the hire of scheme workers to be suspended will offer acceptable answers rather than aggravate the situation.
The CEO and assistant CEO of the Ministry of Commerce Industry and Labour responsible for managing the RSE scheme were suspended and re-instated for reasons that were not made public.
Hopefully the suspension was warranted otherwise it will once again pose as more threat to a trembling public sector already made to work under fears of getting the job boot at the whim of their political masters.
A public sector operating under such trying conditions would dare not push the boundaries for new improvements to raise the quality of national service.
All it succeeds in doing is turn hard working public servants into ‘Yes’ men and women to please their political masters so they can keep their jobs – not a productive pathway for economic recovery.
This new business licensing registration policy demanding all business to tell all has forced owners to be up in arms at what is seen as breach of confidentiality.
In a highly competitive environment of ‘dog eat dog’, being forced to reveal all is akin to being stripped naked to be paraded before your business competitors.
What guarantees are there that confidential information revealed to the public sector will not be leaked? Remember this is the public sector – underline public.
What safeguards are there to protect business owners from political manipulation with every confidential information laid bare by force to be taken advantage of?
The Ministry responsible has the legal right to investigate any business suspected of not adhering to legal requirements that denies rightful revenue earnings for the national coffers.
Nothing wrong with that.
Why then subject the whole business community to line up for a strip search of their integrity that may as well be done before the prying eyes of the public?
If the business community is to play a role in our drive for economic recovery, how responsive are they with the insensitive treatment they are forced to take to have their business licenses renewed?
The World Bank recovery forecast for Samoa relies heavily on the revival of our suspended tourism industry.
Before we decided to shut out the health risks of COVID-19 our visitor based industry was humming along as our leading income earner outside personal remittances.
While our border re-opening has raised our recovery hopes, not having a national carrier to speed up the tourists return remains a controversial issue.
Do we need a carrier of our own to do that?
Government believes we do not. The understanding is that other international carriers looking to profit from the Samoa tourism market will do that at no cost to us.
It is not a new strategy and success did not last when these foreign carriers started playing up at a cost to our industry and to our own local home travelers.
Air New Zealand and Fiji Airways are already flying our home route and the outcry of much higher airfares compared to when we had our own national carrier appears to be falling on deaf ears of everyone concerned.
How this monopolistic jump in airfares will affect the re-start of our tourism industry only time will tell.
Hopefully time and good fate will smile on our struggles and not leave our economic hopes to stutter and screech to a painful standstill.
We have a young leadership that is obviously in a struggle to continue the success of the HRPP lead of the last 40 years.
So far, they appear to be stumbling around without any sign of success at having economic policies they can boast of as their own.
The bottom line concern with the economic challenges mounting at every tick of the clock is what end will we come out of in our recovery drive?
We also have a long lineup of court hearings on pending political matters that are at risk of creating more political turmoil for our national unity.
We do need to keep full watch of the bigger picture – for all our sakes.