Dear Editor,

I had to laugh at the S.N.P.F’s response in yesterday’s paper.

The letter from the lawyer is the biggest fob-off I have seen in a while.

How many Samoa Observers readers have read the S.N.P.F. annual reports, in particular the financial statements? 

At the best of times, these reports are aggregated, difficult to understand or follow and plainly uninformative. 

You really need a degree in accounting to follow or understand the financial statements. They are made to comply with some legal and accounting standards but not to be understood by the ordinary man on the street. 

What hope have I, an ordinary fund contributor, of understanding whether the organisation has spent its funds wisely?

In my stupidity I read the financial statements to try and find out whether I could understand who the big loan recipients are? 

Futile exercise not helped by the fact that my accounting knowledge is pretty basic. The closest I came to finding out about the big loan recipients is a statement in Note 10 to the financial statements which broke down the loans and advances into small and large loans. That is it. 

I am no better off, in terms of knowing about what goes in in the S.N.P.F., than before I read the financial statements.

So my polite response to the lady lawyer is that she can keep her annual reports and I am quite happy to continue in ignorance as before.

Vai Autu