Wearing a blindfold,

Western Samoa

Wearing a blindfold, we walk boldly into 1984

For all they understood about the state of the country’s economy, the people of Western Samoa might have walked into 1984 wearing a blindfold.

This was despite a stormy,

three-week-long budget debate in

parliament in December which, one might have thought, would

have spread ample light on this

subject, if on nothing else.

What they do understand is that Prime Minister Tofilau Eti has conspicuously failed to deliv er on his promise made at the beginning of 1983 of lower liv ing costs at the end of the year.

The prime minister admitted as much in his budget speech when he said: “The extent of the na tion’s problems was such that they could not be solved in a

single year.”

He then said that the tough

measures proposed in the 1984 budget were part of “an on-going program for national economic recovery leading to a path of sustained economic growth”. He added: “We must consolidate the gains that have been made and press forward to achieve further

progress.”

But, for Opposition Leader Tupuola Efi, there just aren’t any gains to “consolidate”. Instead of solving problems, he said, the government had simply created new ones.

One of the major improve ments claimed by Tofilau Eti was the reduction of the govern ment’s local debt from about SWSIO million to $1.2 million by the end of 1983.

For Tupuola, the reduction was simply the result of loans contracted by the government.

“How can that be a gain?” he asked. ”It is simply paying one debt by incurring another one.”

He was also critical of the five per cent interest rate on the new International Monetary Fund loan of $8 million, pointing out that his government had raised loans with the IMF at 3.05 per cent interest.

Of the government’s action in dropping its tender system of importation, Tupuola said the government had made mislead ing claims that the tender system was working well, and then had chopped it. “Why chop a system if it was working so well?” he asked.

But the chief focus of opposi tion attacks on the budget were the government’s plan for a) a national university, and b) a ma jor upgrading of Faleolo interna tional airport.

Although included in the budget, it contained no provision for their financing.

The opposition had a field day pushing the question “Where’s the money coming from?” It was a good question, for the airport extension is estimated to cost $lO million, and, while nobody has yet put a figure on the university

project, everybody is agreed that it would cost “many millions”.

Government MP Faasootauloa Semu Pulagi, speaking to a re porter, said that if countries like Australia and New Zealand would not assist with financing the university project, the gov ernment would seek help from communist China or Russia.

The budget debate finally de generated into a slanging match in which outrageous insults were hurled about in parliament.

Opposition MP Fuimano made Western Samoan parliamentary

history by getting himself sus

pended from parliament for six months, during which he would receive no pay. He had refused to withdraw remarks in which he called Speaker Nonumalo Sofara an “animal thief’. Nobody knew the details, but a letter in a local paper later claimed that on a past occasion the person concerned had indeed been tried and con victed for the theft of an animal.

But despite everything the op position could do, the budget was finally passed at $85.6 million, it is the highest ever, comparing with $69.2 million for

the preceding year.

Sano

Malifa.