Applicants for fisher grants through DMWR — still waiting over a year later

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — People who applied for fisher grants under the CARES Act are now taking the issue to their faipule who have scheduled a hearing after learning that many of their constituents are still waiting for their checks more than a year after filing their applications.

When applications for fisher grants for commercial fishermen and subsistence fishermen and women impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic closed December 11, 2020, the Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources (DMWR) reported it had received more than 2,000 applications.

According to information provided by DMWR, out of the 2,000 applications only about 20 were for assistance for fishing businesses.

American Samoa was awarded $2.5 million in fishers assistance first announced in May 2020 by US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.

The funding was for states, tribes and territories with coastal and marine fishery participants who have been negatively affected by COVID-19.

DMWR with assistance from NOAA and the Pacific States Marine Commission announced at the time it would use these allocations to make awards to address direct or indirect fishery related losses as well as subsistence, cultural or ceremonial impacts related to COVID-19.

DMWR said an Internal Review Committee would review all applications for all categories after Christmas 2020.

Once the applications were approved, the successful subsistence category participants would receive $1000.

Aid to successful business applicants was based on the financial trend information requested to verify 35% or greater economic loss attributed to effects of COVID-19.

It was expected at the time that checks for all successful applicants would be issued by March 2021.

Now some applicants are tired of waiting and they have reached out to their faipule for help.

A House hearing is scheduled for this week by the chair of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Mike Asifoa to discuss this issue.

Several faipule requested that the committee chair include in the list of witnesses for the hearing the primary person who initiated the program to answer people’s concerns.

Saole Representative Titialii Kitara Vaiau said that a lot of his constituents are patiently waiting for their checks as promised by the staff and up until now, nobody has received a check.

Titialii said people from his district are still waiting for their checks but the DMWR remains silent about the program.

“All they want to know is whether this is a real program or not. Many of people from my district are fishermen and they depend on the sea for a living,” Titiali’i said.

One applicant said the program was not well publicized for all needy families who rely on subsistence fishing to feed their family and he blames the staff for the problem.

“DMWR staff should have worked with the mayors of each village to get the word out and maybe even scheduled an outreach program back in the villages to explain to families so that they would have a good understanding about this program,” the applicant said.

In March of last year, rumors were circulating that some people who had applied for the program had received their checks while others had not. People were complaining about the rumors and some of these rumors were spread all over social media.

Samoa News queried the DMWR last year regarding the issue and was told that “no checks have been issued since the applications closed on Dec.11, 2020.”

At the time. DMWR representative, Maria Vaofanua during an interview with Samoa News said, “We want to send out this message to members of the public especially to all fishermen who applied for the program that there have been no checks issued so far. We’re still in the process of putting together all the applications and data before we send the applications over to the U.S. for approval.”

Vaofanua said that they were now entering all the information from each application before they are sent it all to the feds for final approval. The current status of the program is unknown.

By the time the program closed, DMWR had received over 2,000 applications from local fishermen and about ten applications from local businesses applying for fishers funding under the CARES Act.