Recently announced relaxations to the state of emergency orders that have governed life and commerce in Samoa for the past 18 months could not come soon enough. 

But we believe that the Government can and should be doing more to remove the anti-business regulations contained within the emergency orders that do nothing to serve the public health and have profoundly negative effects on our local economy and its small businesses. 

Restrictions imposed by the previous Government curtailing Sunday activities in Samoa such as swimming, shopping and gatherings never made sense. 

Virus particles and infected droplets do not respect days of the week. Droplets are just as potent on a Tuesday as they might be on a Sunday. 

There was no scientific fact behind the imposition of these regulations but rather seizing the opportunity presented by a crisis to promote the sanctity of the Sabbath. 

If that is indeed the will of the Samoan people - to forego economic growth for religious reasons - then let us have a transparent and frank debate about that rather than cloaking religious beliefs in public health terms. 

For the people of Samoa to have no say on what was transparently an anti-business policy at a time when thousands of people have lost their jobs was a shamefully anti-democratic policy.

In terms of our faltering economy, restrictions on small business trading could not have come at a worse time. Our economy is projected to shrink by 10.7 per cent this year, according to estimates by the Asian Development Bank.

And where most other countries have jumped in boots and all to save their economies our previous Government appeared content to stand on the sidelines and watch the decline of our national economy. 

A study by the Australian National University that compared the budgets of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa found that ours was the only economy in which Government spending was set to progressively decrease over the three years from 2019 to 2021. 

This inaction is deeply puzzling. We can only think of it as a consequence of the obligations to service our national debt, which at a shade under half of our gross economic output, has placed limitations on Government spending.  

But even in these times of scarcity we still made dubious budgetary choices.

The USD$250,000 a month we are currently spending on renting a disused Samoa Airways jet would go a long way to keeping small to medium businesses hit by the pandemic-led downturn afloat, or to help put food on the table for the estimated 4,500 people who lost their jobs last year as the result of a tourism downfall.  

We believe that the top of the new Government’s agenda should be pumping money into the economy to stop our bleeding economy and to support businesses affected by the downturn,

It is accepted economic wisdom that in times of economic downturn the Government has a role to play in increasing its spending to inject more money into the economy and counter the downturn.

We need the new administration to do just that.

We also call on them to account for and put to use the $USD 25 million in concessional grants made available to us late last year with the express purpose of supporting workers and businesses hit by economic downturn.

But as much as we have failed to increase Government spending to reduce the downturn, we have also constrained business activity and compounded our economic woes. 

So the announcement by the new Faatuatua ile Atua Samoa ua Tasi (F.A.S.T.) Government that it will, from this weekend, allow markets to open on Sunday - typically their busiest day - from 4 am and pushing back by three hours limitations on when gas stations and large retail concerns can open is a welcome one.

The policy of singling out Sundays for special economic restrictions never made sense to begin with from an economic standpoint; it plainly had religious motivations for keeping the sabbath holy that were cloaked in the guise of public health reasons.

We believe that if we want to have a debate about the merits of maintaining the sacredness of Sundays then we should have an open national conversation about that issue.

Samoa’s current state of emergency restrictions are a rare example of a public policy where doing something is arguably more harmful than doing nothing.

When they were first introduced, businesses, families and event organisers were strict about sticking to measures such as social distancing; supermarkets were meticulous about applying hand sanitiser to customers who themselves dutifully respected markers at the check out queue to ensure social distancing.

But that compliance has since dropped off.  At often Government sponsored events, mass gatherings of people assembled well inside social distancing guidelines have become no normalised as to become unremarkable. 

This slow decline of the public’s compliance with measures designed to protect the nation from a potential COVID-19 outbreak while keeping us under a state of emergency has only created a false sense of security. 

But given that Samoa has only ever had one active case of the virus it is easy to see how this complacency has taken hold.

We believe that the previous Government’s strategy of defining ourselves as an economy defined by tourism and biding its time until it returns is seriously misguided and the new administration must change course immediately. 

That being said, news that the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade is discussing the possibility of a travel corridor with New Zealand is welcome news.

Many are wary of doing so and have fresh in their minds the utter devastation that the 2019 measles pandemic wrought on this country and its infants.

But there are key differences between now and 2019. Where previously the Government watched on while vaccination numbers dropped, they have now taken a proactive approach to ensuring that Samoans are vaccinated.

As most countries in the world struggle to procure enough vaccines to protect their citizens, Samoa is a rare example of a country that has more doses of COVID-19 immunisations than people.

Against this backdrop, health authorities' stated goal of immunising 98 per cent of the eligible population before talks of any travel bubbles can begin seem realistic. 

Tentative talks with New Zealand, a country that has led the world in the strictness of its approach to COVID-19 policy make policy sense and carry a low risk to the public health if our targets can be achieved. 

But in the meantime we should be doing everything we can to kickstart our economy and support our small businesses. Defining ourselves as an outward-facing economy dependent on tourism is not a feasible economic policy, during a pandemic or at any other time. 

That will require a full restoration of pre-COVID 19 Sunday trading hours that allow local business to thrive as best they can in this environment and encourage the creation of local jobs.

The Government’s economic policy should be grounded in facts and reason - the welfare of Samoans depends on it.