The former Human Rights Protection Party Minister of Finance, Sili Epa Tuioti, predicts that there will be budget cuts for some government ministries to meet the Faatuatua I le Atua Samoa ua Tasi Party government election promises of more than $50million tālā.
Sili, who is also a former Chief Executive of the Ministry of Finance, said the FAST election promise of $1million tala for each of the 51 electoral constituencies is fraught with problems, not the least of which is where the funds will come from.
“It will be interesting to see where the funds will come from, hopefully it will not come from Education and Health which have always been priority areas for all HRPP governments,” he said.
He predicts that assistance for all private schools including funds for church school systems will get the chop as well.
“Fifty one million is a lot of money to find from the national budget”.
Sili said the reasons the funds were promised are questionable as well.
“Most of our plantation roads and village developments have been done and most infrastructure works are usually funded by donor grants which cannot be diverted to fund election promises,” he said.
During the FAST roadshow last year, they promised that each electoral constituency will be given $1million tālā for any project they want to do.
Sili says one of the problems FAST will face is not every constituency has the same number of residents.
“Each village within the constituency will want to have their own projects, so it will be interesting to see how they deal with those issues,” said Sili.