There has been an air of positivity in recent months on the back of projections by local and international institutions that Samoa’s economy is on the mend from the COVID-19 pandemic and will record positive growth in the new financial year.

In August this year, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) projected that Samoa would see economic growth of 3.3 per cent in 2023 and 2.8 per cent in 2024 as the country continues its recovery from the pandemic. 

Early this month the Samoa Tourism Authority (STA) also released a statement highlighting the positive growth in the tourism sector, mainly driven by high visitor arrivals into Samoa following the reopening of the country’s international borders in August last year. The rise in visitor numbers has also translated to an increase in foreign exchange earnings for Samoa.

The generation of more earnings for the public purse has also enabled the Samoa government to continue to fund its annual budgets and key expenditure, which includes debt servicing of loans with various multilateral institutions.

This is why we weren’t surprised when the Minister of Finance, Lautimuia Uelese Va'ai early this month talked about how Samoa’s total debt had been reduced to 35 per cent of GDP [Gross Domestic Product] with the healthy state of the economy putting the government in a good position to consider purchasing an aircraft.

But the Fa’atuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) government should exercise caution despite the positive gains that have been made on the economic front over the past 18 months. Samoa with its tourism-dependent economy will continue to be at the mercy of events outside our borders, which can swiftly turn around the country’s fortunes, such as the global conflict in Gaza between the militant group Hamas and Israel which threatens to grow into a bigger conflict in the Middle East.

Therefore, the announcement by Minister Lautimuia on Monday this week, on the decision of the current administration to only engage one accounting firm to do the forensic audit of the former government’s key projects makes sense.

The question is why should two different accounting firms be engaged to do the same job at double the cost to the government and Samoan taxpayers?

The decision by the Cabinet to only commission one accounting firm – as opposed to two firms as per comments in recent months by a number of Cabinet Ministers as well as the Chairman of the Finance and Expenditure Parliamentary Committee  – could have possibly saved the State between SAT$500,000 and SAT$1 million, which were the cost figures that were quoted in Cabinet submissions and the 2023/24 Budget paper for the forensic audit project.

This is public funding that we cannot afford to lose or spend on projects, which ultimately will have a minuscule effect on the government’s service delivery program, let alone positively impacting the lives of the people.

With just over two years left before the 2026 General Election, the outcome of the forensic audit project remains unknown and questions linger over how much effect it will have on the ruling party’s re-election strategy.

Perhaps, Minister Lautimuia might want to brief the public on the rationale behind budgeting between SAT$500,000 and SAT$1 million into such an exercise, as the last time the Samoan voters were privy to such information was during the ruling party’s roadshows in the lead-up to the 2021 General Election and their subsequent election victory.

At that time there were suggestions in some quarters that the forensic audit findings would reveal the absence of best practices in the management of the various publicly funded projects undertaken during the Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) term of government.

For now, these are all hearsay, and one potential outcome is that the auditors could also find that the projects were well-managed with critics likely to describe the forensic audit project as nothing but a political witchhunt. 

The jury is still out on this FAST government election promise, and there is no guarantee that the findings of the forensic audit project, upon its completion will benefit either side of Samoa’s political spectrum. One thing we do know is that any government-sanctioned project that comes with such a high price should ultimately benefit the people – not Members of Parliament and their political games.