Desperate times leave only desperate options for many local families

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Low income families and taxpayers are calling out to government leaders to take a serious look at the issue of high cost of living and the practice of some business owners to continue to raise the cost of items the people need for their daily lives.

Samoa News interviewed some family members from several parts of the island regarding how the high cost of living is affecting them and some of them shared their heartbreaking stories on how they are surviving, while they feel that government leaders and officials are just sitting back inside their air-conditioned offices doing nothing to help the community.

Kasiano Leaupepe, 54, of Leone has been a construction worker for over 23 years now. He’s married with 5 five children and 8 grandchildren. Leaupepe is from Samoa while his wife is from the village of Leone.

“I’m just thankful that I have this job because if I didn’t, I don’t know what I would do to support my family and my kids.

“I get about $200 a week from it so at least there’s something right? It’s a lot of help because I really wouldn’t know what to depend on if I didn’t have this job.

“We try to eat Samoan food or anything from the plantation when we want to save money for something.

“The cost of living can be cheap for other people but certainly not for people like me because I can’t afford to live the life other families with good wealth live.”

According to Leaupepe, his wife and daughter contacted the Attorney General’s office a few months ago to report the issue about a store in Leone that raised the prices of many items every two weeks.

He said his wife went to buy a 20lb bag of rice, and two weeks later, the price for the same 20lb bag of rice had increased by over $2.

He said this is the same problem with all other food items in the store and this is an ongoing problem with this store in the village.

When his family reported this matter to the AG’s office, they instructed them to provide proof before they could ever conduct an investigation or a visit.

Leaupepe said he was pissed off at the response from the government.

“This is their job, not us. Their job is to enforce the law by visiting each store to see if the store owners are in compliance of the law.

“The cost of living is too high because the government is not doing their job.

“As a result, low income families, like my family, are facing this problem day by day.

“I hope our Faipule is reading this interview and stands up to do something to help the people — especially a low income family like mine.

Taavili Seiaute shared the same thoughts about the high cost of living and the fact the government is turning a blind eye when people are calling out for help.

Seiaute, a father of four, drives his taxi everyday for over 9 years now to provide for his family. His wife has worked at the StarKist Samoa for over 15 years.

According to Mr. Seiaute, life now-a-days is really hard due to many faalavelave and the faasamoa. He explained that the cost of living in American Samoa 20 years ago is not the same today.

“Twenty years ago, you could survive with $20 for a week, Today, it’s a different story. A $100 is nothing today — is nothing compared to many years ago and the reason is that the cost of living is high while the salary of a low income family like my family is still the same.

According to Seiaute, American Samoa is receiving a lot of federal grants from the United States during the pandemic and government leaders should utilize these funds correctly.

“I’m not a politician nor a revenue expert but if we look at the American Samoa Government’s budget and the revenue collection, it shows that ASG is collecting more revenue from local funds.

ASG must use these local funds to raise salaries for all people from low income families working at the government and private sectors.

Seiaute said he understands the Fono budget is 100% local funds and it appears to him the Fono is hiring more employees (who are family members) to work at the Fono using local funds and to hike salaries and allowances for themselves while low income families continue to struggle.

Seiaute said the purpose of the government and its leaders is to do their job and help the people, not put money inside their own pockets to benefit themselves.

“We’ve come to realize that as things keep on changing, the cost of living changes with it as well.

“So if you don’t strive your best to find yourself a job, it’s going to be worse for you because with the job I have, I need to budget the money I get so it can cover the basic necessities and anything else that we need, for that matter.

“It’s too much and we deserve to be helped in this situation please; I know there will be a time when we have nothing at all to depend on in the near future.”

Margret Latu agreed that the cost of living in American Samoa is high and the government is not doing anything to stop it.

For Latu and her family, budgeting the small money they get is a tough struggle. Aged 25, Lilly is a single mother of one and is residing with her family at Ottoville.

“For our family, my parents and my brothers all have jobs but the money they get from their pay is still not enough to cover for everything we need within our family,” she told Samoa News.

“That’s usually the case because you know how it is for us in American Samoa. We spend money on a lot of things like food, family obligations and fa’alavelave, church donations including money for the Faifeau, paying the bills and others. 

“That is the hardest thing for us. The money we get goes straight to these things and we always struggle trying to budget and what to give our priority to.”

She pointed out that nevertheless, the children’s schooling is one of the things the money will go to especially as school is starting.

“Once school starts that will add on to the list of expenses we already have. It’s just not enough.”

Sanele Ioane of Petesa said the record price of fuel is something we should all be concerned about. He believes that the rising fuel costs will inevitably lead to a more expensive cost of living, if that is not the case already.

If the cost of fuel, and ultimately the cost of living are increasing, how are people able to keep up?

“Let’s not forget that we live in a country where the minimum wage remains $4.60 per hour. Most families have an average of at least 10 people.”

One of the things that causes a Samoan family to live poorly, according to Ioane, is the faasamoa.

He said his family has to do church donations every Sunday, provide ‘alofa’ for the ‘faifeau’, family faalavelave, and many more while the cost of living is going up.

As a result, a low-income family is unable to provide for their children and as a result, someone from that low income family will decide to do something else to earn more money for the family. And often it’s either stealing or selling drugs.

BACKGROUND

Samoa News published an article, Sept. 21, 2022 issue, “Senate introduces bill to increase salaries of Governor and Lt. Gov — Just a year after another increase.” The article pointed out that the Senate had introduced a bill that would increase the salaries of the Governor to $150,000 and Lieutenant Governor to $140,000.

The bill comes a year after the current Legislature approved the increase for the Governor from $85,000 to $120,000 and Lt Governor $75,000 to $100,000.

The bill also seeks to amend the former governors’ monetary allowance to reflect the current salary of the Governor in office.

The bill comes on the heels of the chair of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, Senator Magalei Logovi’i in an interview with Samoa News over the weekend, saying that that it’s evident the proposed budget is mainly for personnel.

“There is no funding for developments — then what is the purpose of having government workers when there are no development projects?” asked Magalei.

He noted that “we all know these increases are made possible through the COVID funding we have received from the federal government and given these fundings are temporary, when it ends, where will the government get the monies to fund the increases they made?

“We don’t have any new funding sources, so that means the salaries will be rolled back,” said Magalei.