By Martha Taumata Fa’avae
Repatriated travelers will need to consider seriously the worth of coming to Samoa if they are to fork out $3000-$5000 tala to pay for quarantine costs of stay on arrival.
This is what the accommodation bill will come to for all inbound travelers isolated in quarantine stay of up to 3 weeks under health requirements to protect against the COVID pandemic and.
Government used to cover the costs and in the two years the restrictions have been in place it is already out of pocket for $2m tala.
But that is no longer going to be the case anymore as the COVID pandemic financial burdens continue to drain the national economy.
The only exempt travelers are local medical referrals send for overseas health treatments and scholarship students.
The new travel policy comes into effect for the first quarter of the New Year where several repatriation flights are scheduled from January up to March 2022.
The previous Government decision to meet quarantine costs when the quarantine stays were enforced was to help returning Samoan citizens.
“The understanding was it was only for a short time, we had no idea it will go for this length of time,” former Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi told the local media in his weekly press conference last week.
Tuilaepa agreed with the move for the new arrivals to carry their own costs of quarantine stays over the 3-weeks period of isolation.
The opposition leader believes it will help balance out the loss of national revenue from new Government policies in several key sectors of the economy.
The recent drop in electricity rates, customs duties and the imminent release of faifeau from paying income taxes were highlight.
Electricity rates are felt to have been brought down at a time when fuel costs were going up and the worry is when the Electric Power Corporation is forced to turn to Government for a bail out.
“When that happens we’ll all be caught up in the rippling effects,” Tuilaepa felt.
The loss of revenue from the ‘faifeau income taxes’ is another loss of source of revenue the opposition leader believes the national economy cannot afford at this time of the COVID pandemic pressures.
EFKS faifeau reportedly earns up to $300,000 tala a year from their respective congregations much more than what the Head of State is paid.
“Maybe it will be godly for the ‘faifeau’ to consider paying income taxes as their contribution to help the national economy.
“Every church denomination have normal obligations to the development of the faith but that should not be used by the ‘faifeau’ as an excuse to save up on income paid directly into his pocket by the congregation.”
No reactions so far from inbound travelers to being made to pay for their own stay especially from Samoan inbound arrivals from New Zealand and Australia.