“Where is all the money for the tsunami victims gone?” - This is the common refrain from a growing sector of the community and as of last night, a stinging roar from the Campbell Live current affairs show from New Zealand. The host, John Campbell, asked this of Misa Telefoni in an interview and Misa embarrassingly had a fumbled non-answer.
The program aired in New Zealand to hundreds of thousands of viewers who would have donated money for the relief effort last year. Misa is usually one of the more eloquent members of cabinet and a very experienced and respected member of the government. For Misa to mumble his answers is close to a national embarrassment. It appears to perfectly describe the government's fumbling of this issue.
According to Campbell Live’s figures, just over NZD $108 million (ST $172 million) was donated to the Samoan government for tsunami-related relief and rebuilding. A quick view of the supplementary estimates budget tabled at the end of 2009 in parliament reveals amounts from various government ministries for their tsunami-related expenditure. The grand total amounted to just over ST $20 million. The massive gap between the supplementary estimates budget and the figures provided by Campbell Live would rival Mose’s parting of the Red Sea.
Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi (Stui), the Prime Minister, the Head of the Government, the guy where the buck theoretically stops, was not in town when Campbell Live called. However, a clip of him answering TVNZ’s Tagata Pasifika’s questions about the tsunami money was shown as part of the Campbell Live report. His answer that "the tsunami is no longer news worthy" should make every Samoan cringe. If this is his answer to valid and legitimate media questions, it does nothing to calm the rising storm of criticism that is coming his way.
The Prime Minister should remember that he may brush off the media with his ridiculous one-line non-answers but he cannot brush off the New Zealand government and other international aid donors. They will be wanting to know that the money donated for the victims of the tsunami has not gone instead to the contractors and government ministries that supposedly tabled their expenditures in parliament last year. They would want to know this because the New Zealand government and other countries which sent governmental level aid must answer to their taxpayers. The reputation of Samoa’s ability to handle aid money in national emergencies is at stake here. Samoa’s foreign relations with these countries is an important pivot of Samoa’s Development Strategies.
The government needs to come out and put this issue to rest by answering the questions raised by the national (and now the international) media. Evading questions with non-answers just makes matters worse for a government that needs to keep the aid partners on side. The HRPP is highly likely to be returned to Tiafau malae to form government next year. However, the government’s ability to maintain economic development projects in partnership with New Zealand and other aid donors will be hampered if there are continuing questions over its ability to account for things like the tsunami aid money.
Stui might be smug about the HRPP’s favourable election chances next year, but the worst case scenario for his party is that countries such as New Zealand and Australia will start withholding aid or grants from the government. The result is that constituencies will not be seeing so many new roads, seawalls, water connections, and other goodies that the HRPP likes to dish out close to election time. Those constituencies might then think twice about wanting their MPs to join the HRPP in the 2016 general elections. This issue needs to be taken seriously and these questions need to be answered and answered properly.
No comments:
Post a Comment