Painful economic jump-start

By David North

ONE way to jump-start an Island economy is to suffer a major hurricane, then have the US Government come to the rescue. That has been American Samoa’s experience three times in recent years.

The sequence works like this. First, the big storm Tusi, in 1987, Ofa in 1990, and last December, Val, A lot of damage is done. The Governor (most recently Peter Tali Coleman) prevails on the US President to declare American Samoa a disaster area. The President’s decision sets in motion a flurry of not always well coordinated relief efforts, and volunteers and supplies pour in from the Mainland.

A number of sharpsters as well as real victims benefit.

One reason why the pattern persists is that, even in a time of budget constraints, the amounts of money shipped from Washington to Pago Pago are tiny by Washington terms, if massive by those of the American Samoan Government (ASG). Further, they come from many places, so no single federal government agency is nicked significantly. Finally, it is not in the interests of ASG to slow the distribution of goods and services to make sure that the Mainland money is spent wisely so it often isn’t.

How much money is involved? Esti mates suggest about $3O million for Val (as opposed to a miserly US allocation of $ 150,000 to help the far more numerous

rictims in Western Samoa.)

In general terms, Federal Emergency

Management Agency (FEMA) does

houses and the Red Cross does food and household vouchers. Both traditionally have trouble working out who is eligible for some help and who needs none; the Mainlanders who do most of the work are easily confused by Island names and there is no system of numbering houses, so FEMA has been known to provide more housing repair assistance than was needed.

The FEMA package is attractive convince FEMA that you own the house, and it needs fixing, and they give you a cheque for up to $B,OOO. No receipts are called for routinely unless the damage is more than $B,OOO. In cases of severe damage, FEMA will replace the entire house with one of its own.

Relief vouchers and food baskets distributed by the Red Cross are equally attractive; vouchers were reportedly given to 10,226 families representing 77,035 individuals. In contrast, the most recent estimate of the entire population is 50,000. The average family voucher was worth $l,lOO.

Sometimes sharpsters are thwarted.

Half a dozen locals, who had been Red Cross volunteers, were caught writing out phoney vouchers for their own use.

A building contractor was arrested for taking more than $lOO,OOO in deposits from homeowners, then not doing any work on their houses.

The ASG government, meanwhile, got funding from FEMA for more than 600 short-term jobs, and paid many of the workers $5 an hour much more than the minimum wage set for regular ASG workers. It also came out, after Val, that ASG was in a jam for mismanaging the

Tusi clean-up during the Lutali Admin istration, and owing the Feds $1 million as a result.

Meanwhile, substantial amounts of money and supplies pour into the American Islands after these storms.

During Ofa there was so much money, in FEMA repair funds, that new supplies of US bills had to be flown in from Hawaii those with the cheques wanted greenbacks. Similarly, the outpouring of money into Western Samoa banks was so great following Ofa, that the banks had too few borrowers to absorb it. ( PIM,

April 1991)

But some lessons had been learned: O ASG reduced the usually easy migration from Western Samoa for 30 days after Val, apparently to see to it that only residents of American Samoa ben efited from the Mainland largess; Governor Coleman’s explanation was he did not want to place additional burdens on the territory’s utilities, services, and public infrastructure post-storm.

O FEMA houses, built to strict mainland building codes, after Tusi and Ofa, generally survived Val’s even fiercer winds.

O FEMA has decided, after the village of Sili (15 houses) was virtually demolished three times by heavy seas, that it will not rebuild it again. This is painful to the inhabitants who, because of traditional Samoan ties to the land, feel that they cannot buy plausible building sites elsewhere.

The relief workers particularly the short-term people brought in right after the disaster are not auditors, they’re just good-hearted folk who want to help.

So the chances are that the pattern of real damage, generous Mainland response, and local waste will be repeated when Val’s successor hits the Islands. □