AVA CULTURE GREETING : The ava culture is the traditional form of greeting when the chiefs hosts visiting guests at the village or district setting
By Staff Writer
Government is not getting any let off in pressure to honour an election winning promise to pay each electoral districts $1m tala every year of their 5 year term in office.
Only two handout payments for a total of $350,000 tala have been made per district for the first 2 years, leaving a full unpaid balance of $1.65m tala.
The total is from the left over balance of the first year payment of $800,000 plus $850,000 unpaid for the second year million tala.
The unpaid balances are far from being lost to the watchful attention of the former Prime Minister turned leader of the Human Rights Protection Party leader, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi.
“I’m not letting my attention off on where these unpaid balances have ended up,” Tuilaepa vowed during his weekly Thursday press conference.
“The money they’ve paid out to our electoral districts is enough only to pay allowances for development committee members, what happened to the funds for our development projects they had promised,” he asked.
The former PM offered an option for Government to consider of diverting the unpaid money as handouts to churches of all denominations in the villages.
He gave as an example a recent cash gift by the Government to an EFKS church at Sapapali’i village in Savai’i at the dedication of their new church.
“I’m sure they gave some money as well to the Lepea Catholic Church congregation as well at the recent dedication of their new cathedral- why not do that to all the other churches in the villages?”
Tuilaepa is calling on PM Fiame and her decision makers in Cabinet, Laauli, Olo and Tuala Ponifasio to make the switch to the churches.
The FAST Government struck on a winner when they made the election promise to handout $1m tala a year to each of the 51 electoral constituencies to ‘undertake whatever developments they wish to do.”
Each constituency will end up with a total of $5m tala for the full 5 year run of Government or an overall total of $251m tala to cover all the districts.
While Tuilaepa is promising to maintain full concentration on the unpaid handout balance, he has other election promises by Government that his radar is zeroed in.
The promise for Samoans to vote from where they live outside Samoa is one he wants to be updated on a well as the $300 pension increase from the $200 started by his HRPP Government before the new Govt. took over.