DOC issues report on Fed financial assistance for local businesses

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — To help rebuild the local economy since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic two years ago, just over 60 local businesses has so far been awarded financial assistance through two programs under the territory’s Business Recovery Capital Program (BRCP), funded by the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and administered by the local Department of Commerce (ASDOC).

The two BRCP initiatives are — the Revolving Line of Credit (RLOC), in which16 businesses has been granted lines of credit and 49 local companies has so been awarded funds under grants funding, said DOC in a latest statement as of July 30.

Registration along with application submission for the two programs has already closed but no additional information was available as to whether there are pending applicants being processed for either program. 

“The objective of the BRCP is to support the recovery and expansionary efforts of the local businesses affected by the COVID restrictions,” said DOC, which also publicly released the list of local businesses and their award amounts, as of July 30 - to comply with ASG’s Oversight Office for ARPA rules making the information public.

Go one line for a complete list of awardees at:

https://www.doc.as.gov/post/business-recovery-capitol-program-asdoc-rel…

Last year, the Oversight Office announced $10 million from ARPA allocated to DOC to administered BRCP, to assist small to medium size businesses impacted with COVID-19. DOC partnered with the ASG owned Territorial Bank of American Samoa (TBAS) on both programs. (See Samoa News edition Dec. 8, 2021 edition for details of the DOC proposal.)

Objective of this project is to support recovery and expansionary efforts of local businesses that were affected by the COVID restrictions. “Due to lack of capital access, the businesses are considered the most underserved areas in our community,” said DOC in its BRCP documents released last December by the Oversight Office.

And the Oversight Office on July 30 this year, released the latest American Samoa ARPA Performance Report, providing updates on all projects funded with the territory’s $470 million share of the ARPA money - including the BRCP.

RLOC UPDATE

After numerous outreach programs explaining the RLOC program, it was launched in early 2022. The total allocated budget was $5 million with approved amounts ranging from $50,000 to $500,000.

“However, only 2 clients got the maximum as they needed it for bulk cement orders that were affected by supply and shipping issues. All facilities are for one year due on demand,” according to the Oversight Office performance report. “It could be renewed if the lending need is still warranted and clients comply with a 30-day cleanup period.”

The DOC awardee list shows Aveia Inc (not to be confused with Aveina Bros.) and CBT Ho Ching are the two businesses, which received $500,000 each under the RLOC. Six local businesses have so far been approved for $250,000 in RLOC and the others are between $50,000 and $175,000. So far more than $3.5 million has been awarded to local businesses under the RLOC program.

The list of awardees includes building suppliers, contractors, restaurants, retail stores and wholesalers. And the program will have unused/available amounts which may be re-allocated to Grants in order to finish up that program, says the Oversight Office performance report.

GRANTS INIATIVE

The performance report states that this program was launched in February this year. And it went through some early changes and finally offered as grants only, up to $25,000.

Of the approved awardees — covering a wide range of local businesses — so far: 40 of them received the maximum of $25,000 — while nine businesses were awarded funds of between $7,600 and $21,000, according to the DOC list, as of July 30, with just over $1.17 million in total awarded so far.

According to DOC documents submitted to the Oversight office, the RLOC program will continue until December 31, 2022. The grants program will continue as loans issued through the program are repaid and reissued as per program guidelines. Any and all funds remaining from the RLOC program shall be transferred over to the grants program.

The BRCP is separate from the Governor’s Cash Assistance Program (CAP), which covers the period from Feb. 22 to Apr. 18, for businesses impacted when Code Red was activated after the first community spread of COVID-19 was confirmed.