Samoan TV Sets

Race Is On For First Samoan TV Sets

From R. F. Rankin, in Apia It could well be that Western Samoa’s radio station 2 AP, which went commercial a couple of years ago, will lose a lot of evening listeners in the next few months. The new attraction is TV—from American Samoa.

SINCE Pago began transmission in October (the first in the South Pacific) there have been some suggestions on this side of the islands that reception in Western Samoa wouldn’t be satisfactory. But those fears have come to nought following extensive tests made by technicians of KVZK-TV and the West Samoan Post Office and Radio.

“We never dreamt reception in Apia would be so good. Apia is getting very good fringe reception,” said KVZK-TV’s chief engineer Hank Cronin.

Said Director of Post Office and Radio in Western Samoa, Ernest Betham: “I can say quite certainly that almost the whole of Apia and its environs will get very good re ception”.

The Head of State, at Vailima, and the Prime Minister, at Lepea, are both getting good reception on TV receivers presented them by Ameri can Samoa’s Governor Lee. KVZK now broadcasts entertainment and

educational programmes from 7 to 10 each night except Sunday.

Local firms had been holding off placing orders for TV sets until the quality of reception was officially confirmed. Now the race is on to get the first sets on sale in Apia.

Customs Duty

There is still some question over customs duty. Radios, because of their educational value, come in at 5 per cent, but TV sets, which in the past have been imported only in very small quantities for sale to seconded officers returning to New Zealand, are rated for customs duty at 45 per cent.

There is strong public pressure for the 5 per cent., and a lot of private political support, but by mid- December no decision had been an nounced. (See also p. 37, “Pago TV Picked up in Rarotonga”).

THE patience of Western Samoa’s public servants is wearing thin.

Eight months after they applied for a salary increase to the Government on May 15, they still have not had a reply.

Secretary of the Public Service Association M. Kleis says that public servants have not had any salary adjustment since 1959. From that time until December 31, 1962, the cost of living index, kept by the Government, showed an increase of 13 per cent. Up to June, 1964, the increase is 18 per cent., with an even greater increase expected up to the end of 1964.

With no real cohesion in their ranks however, the Public Service Association is a fairly weak voice and in the current financial crisis public servants will more likely than not just have to grin and bear it.

The association has been trying to reinforce relations with the NZ Public Service Association, which was, before independence, its parent body. ☆ ☆ ☆ IN spite of findings by a Com mission of Inquiry that no in crease in pay for Samoa’s Members of Parliament was warranted, in a burst of pre-Christmas generosity Cabinet in December decided that ordinary MP’s should get a fixed re muneration of £soo—about £lOO rise on previous salaries plus allowances.

The Commission first sat in 1963 and recommended no increase. Parlia ment refused to accept this and Cabinet turned the report back to

the Commission for further considera tion.

Final recommendation made by the Commission early in 1964 was that the previous £lBO a year plus allow ances should be altered to a flat rate of £4OO a year, which came to very much the same thing.

In view of the fact that Public Service salaries are now trailing about 20 per cent, behind cost of living increases over the last four years, the move to increase salaries for MP’s has not been popular with the public.

The Constitution states that salaries of Members of Parliament can be changed from time to time only after deliberations by a Commission of In quiry. But Cabinet is apparently not bound to accept the findings of the Commission.

MP’s have been pressing for higher salaries for the last two or three years. They have been aiming for at least £6OO a year, but with 47 Mem bers legislating for a population ol only 115,000 the Samoan Parliament must already, proportionately per head of population, be one of the most expensive in the world to run.

The salaries, as from January 1 for ordinary members are £4OO plm an allowance of £lOO to cover official duties, and 10/- per hour sitting allowance when serving on com mittees of the House. ☆ ☆ ☆ THE lures of plentiful employment, high wages, and now TV in Ameri can Samoa have proved irresistible to many Western Samoans, and some 5 per cent, of Western Samoa’s popu lation is now residing in Tutuila.

In April, 1964, the Government ol American Samoa demanded passports for all aliens living in Americar Samoa, and the Western Samoar Office for Immigration and Emigra tion began issuing passports to all Western Samoan citizens residing ir American Samoa.

The office reported early Decembei that in seven months it had issuer 3,200 passports for American Samoa ☆ ☆ ☆ According to who pubii< health official Dr. S. Haraldson the tropical paradise of plentiful fooc and not too much work is not th< bed of roses it is sometimes claimec to be.

On the contrary, an increasing number of Samoans are cracking ui under the stress and strain of moderr life.

“Problems connected with menta

health are growing in Western Samoa, particularly in the urban and suburban areas of Apia,” said Swedish expert Dr. Haraldson.

He said that the increasing occurrence of peptic ulcers and mental ailments was evidence of the growing stresses of modern life con flicting with the less complicated traditional way of life.

On the credit side however, Dr.

Haraldson said action on mental health came low in priority after the fight against dirt and disease, and the fact that attention was being paid the problem in Western Samoa indicated the fairly high standard of public health in the country.

He has recommended post-graduate training in psychiatric medicine for Dr. Lealofi Tamasese, who studied in this field on the first WHO fellow ship granted a Samoan medical practitioner in 1955. He would then be engaged full-time on psychiatric treatment in Apia.

At the moment there are 10 serious mental cases accommodated in the gaol at Tafaigata. ☆ ☆ ☆ TNSTALLED as Acting Prime Minister during the seven-week absence in New Zealand for official discussions and medical treatment of Prime Minister Mataafa, Minister of Finance, Mr. G. F. D. Betham, did not have a particularly happy time.

Speaker after speaker in the Budget debate so attacked the Government that in his reply Mr.

Betham was driven to an impassioned defence of Government policy.

“I belive it is a sad commentary for Western Samoa when its second Government since independence, with less than a year in office, is so roundly blamed for everything, even to the physical and human forces beyond man’s control,” said Mr.

Betham.

He claimed that the tenor of remarks during the debate had been that the Government had done nothing at all, or that it had done nothing right and everything wrong, or that it was pushing things too fast, at a pace inconsistent with commonsense reasoning.

“We have had new members in the political scene, whose leadership is yet to be tried and proved within their own constituencies, making sweeping statements of gross in competency in every field of Government operation, including such agencies as the Copra Board and other corporations.

“If such a state of affairs did exist, Western Samoa would today be a shambles—and I ask you, with all sincerity, is this so?” said Mr.

Betham.

Recommendations Disregarded

Charges were made during the debate that Cabinet was completely disregarding the recommendations passed by the House. Members felt so strongly about this that Deputy Speaker Magele Ate said he would be the first to move a motion to remove the present Cabinet if no action was taken on proposals by members. {c Such talk, said Mr. Betham, was bravado”. He said that members did not realise the amount of work falling on Cabinet.

Mr. Betham claimed that with the help of New Zealand and the United Nations, Samoa could point to a formidable list of accomplishments and progressive moves since in dependence”, and that the country was generally acknowledged as providing a good example of sensible approach to independence for other emerging nations.

“There appears to be a cynical delight in some quarters to minimise this progress with exaggerated reports designed to create chaos and con fusion in Government activities.

This helps the contry’s image neither here nor overseas.”