A lot has happened over the last three years, punctuated by the measles epidemic in the second half of 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020–2021, impacting both Samoa’s Government and the private sector. 

The declaration of the State of Emergency (SOE) in March 2020, the closing of the Faleolo International Airport, the restriction in public gatherings, the shutdown of Government services, and the selected business trading hours made the last three years tough and literally choked Samoa’s economy.

A lot of Government services were also affected, mainly those in the health sector which were stretched, as the pandemic took its toll on the local population, especially its most vulnerable. 

So we note the concerns highlighted by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Customs and Revenue in an article (Diplomatic missions to be audited) in the Tuesday 20 December 2022 edition of the Samoa Observer.

The article reported on the approval given by the Cabinet for the Audit Office to check the books of all Samoan diplomatic missions abroad, but not before Tuala Iosefo Ponifasio expressed concern at a four-year hiatus after the last audits.

There has been a four-year backlog since the accounts of Samoa’s diplomatic missions were last audited, though they are still being “monitored” by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Tuala said he didn’t understand why it took so long for the missions’ books to be audited when it should be an annual activity.

The explanation from the Audit Office is that the staff use their overseas travel to undertake some of those audit functions, but the Deputy Prime Minister said the Cabinet didn’t accept that explanation.

“But according to the Cabinet this was not good enough,” Tuala said. “So we’ve allowed them to go and do the audit as a matter of urgency but in the future they need to audit as they go. 

“Having said that they haven’t entirely ignored the finance accounts of missions [office] they’ve always monitored it through the M.F.A.T. [Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade], it's not a total neglect or let go of the audit…”

The Deputy Prime Minister also said not a lot of money is expended by our missions abroad, but he stressed that they are still public funds and they need to be audited. 

We concur with Tuala and are also surprised that there was a four-year hiatus after the last audits of the country’s diplomatic missions.

Of course we acknowledge the disruption to the Government’s daily functions in the second half of 2019, due to the measles epidemic and the pandemic between 2020–2021, which wreaked havoc and halted most Government services.

And over the years we’ve been impressed with the dedication of the Audit Office and their tireless efforts to hold Government Ministries and agencies accountable – through their audits which then make their way as reports to the Legislative Assembly for sanctioning as part of the process. 

But the fact that there were no audits of Samoan diplomatic missions for four consecutive years is a concern. It appears the dates of the non-auditing period also covered 2019 and 2018 which as we all know were not impacted by any health crisis until the epidemic towards the end of 2019.

So why was there a four-year interruption in that function of the Audit Office when Article 99 of the Constitution and the preamble of the Audit Act 2013 are clear on the need to audit public bodies, statutory and local authorities?

We would understand if there was a one-year backlog in audits due to everything that has happened, as mentioned above but four years of non-activity raises red flags and puts the spotlight on the Audit Office and its mandate as stipulated in the Constitution of Samoa.

With Samoa’s local economy in a dilapidated state and the forecast for the economy’s post-pandemic recovery not looking good, the need for full audits of the various public bodies, statutory and local authorities becomes all the more important for the Government of the day.

The current state of our economy also means donor funding makes up a large component of Samoa’s public expenditure, and the Government through the Audit Office has to provide oversight on how these funds are expended. It is our hope that the anomaly – be it the system or the process or the personnel – can be immediately identified and rectified for the benefit of the nation.