The chiefs from Aana Alofi No.1 have taken a step in the right direction by getting the police involved in what allegedly appears to be misappropriating public funds. However, the member of parliament denies any wrongdoing.

The chiefs lodged a police complaint against Fesola’i Tusiupu Tuigamala over a $50,000 investment sourced from the $1 million district development grant and then withdrawn without their knowledge. More than 20 matai from the district signed a complaint that was lodged with the police two weeks ago. The senior matai from the district are alleging the misappropriation of their $50,000 investment with the Unit Trust of Samoa (UTOS).

This is in contrast to all the other reports about the misuse of the district grants. This step is a wake-up call for the government ministries involved, who do their so-called investigations and often result in a lack of sanctions against the parties at fault. For example, the missing $175,000 in Faasaleleaga No.2, where the MP Magele Sekati Fiaui and the district council secretary were handed the money, and it disappeared. Later, rather mysteriously, it came out that the money was used elsewhere. It still is unexplained how the money that no one knew about for months was later discovered to have been used for the district’s purpose. The investigation and the financial records of where the money was used have not been made public.

What is concerning is that the advice from the Office of the Attorney General to refer the matter to appropriate legal authorities was not followed. The Crimes Act 2013, section 47 states - a person is guilty of an offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years if the person does anything intending to dishonestly cause a loss to the Government of Samoa.

The chiefs of Aana Alofi No.1 have now set a precedent that shows accountability and transparency should not be buried under chiefly titles or discarded because they involve the elected representative of a constituency. For too long, there has been a reluctance to involve the law in such matters. The money used for the district grants belongs to the public. It therefore demands transparency and accountability. We all know that this has been missing.

That is why $255 million or a quarter of a billion tala is open to abuse and misappropriation. This is despite the assurance given by the ministries dealing with the fund. In December last year, the Australian government announced that every dollar of development funding contributed by Australia to Samoa can now be tracked, boosting accountability and transparency. The AusDevPortal provides access to more comprehensive data on Australia’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) investments online. You want to be truly accountable and transparent, do something similar, so every tala spent under the district grant can be tracked. Not like what is happening now.

Every voter in every district is entitled to question any MP, and the politician must provide those answers. Just because politicians are chiefs, it does not give them the right to shut people out and then work towards banishing them. As we have seen happen over the years. The law allows people to report matters such as abuse of funds to the police, and the police have a sworn duty to look into each complaint and verify if there is cause to lay charges. We have said it before, and we will keep repeating it: everyone is equal when it comes to the law; there should be no discrimination.

A politician abusing public funds in any way, whether he withdraws it from a unit trust without knowledge or a politician uses the district to gift those who voted for him or would vote for him, is a crime.

People often say, nothing will happen, everyone is corrupt. The bigger question is, have people taken any steps to ensure that corruption is stopped? The government is late in its part by not having the anti-corruption and right to information laws in place, but that does not stop people from knocking on the police’s door.

Corruption and abuse only thrive because we are allowing it to.