Villages that forked out thousands of tala to decorate their surroundings as part of the countrywide beautification competition are still awaiting the results and prizes for the initiative.

Launched ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in October, many villages in Upolu and Savaii participated in the National Beautification competition. 

The competition was also part of the country’s cleanup campaign intended to encourage villagers to be creative and display gardening skills by decorating roadsides. 

In September, Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa said the programme invited villages from the airport to the perimeters of the meeting venues to adopt a country as a public relations gesture to all guests for CHOGM. 

The Samoa Tourism Authority (STA) spearheaded the committee that carried out several inspections in the villages leading up to CHOGM with the results anticipated to be released after the meeting.

Villages did not take their preparations lightly and many spent more than $50,000 on decorations to welcome the guests. 

To date, many village representatives that the Samoa Observer spoke to said they have not heard back from the S.T.A. since and have not been given any other information. 

Many acknowledge the initiative was a success and hope the wait will be worth it considering the amount of money spent on their preparations. 

The S.T.A. A.C.E.O. and beautification committee member, Fanaea Natu Taulealo was contacted for a comment and replied to have all queries refer to the C.E.O. who is on duty travel. 

In previous years, the beautification campaign program came under the Ministry of Women Community and Social Development (MWCSD) with an annual budgetary allocation of $150,000. 

It has since been scrapped by the MWCSD and for this financial year, the money has come out of the STA output with a small allocation of just $10,000.