Impediment

to growth

By lan Williams

SAMOAN Attorney General Leaupepe

Sanerivi, warned press at the UN of a previously unlooked for impediment to development. National Pacific Insurance has stopped offering cyclone cover in his country and in neighbouring American Samoa the Travelers Insurance Com pany pulled out after Cyclone Val. “We have had three cyclones in the past four years each of a ferocity that is supposed to occur every 80 to 100 years,” said the Attorney General, adding, “Ofa in 1990 caused around SUSI7O million in dam age and last December Cyclone Val killed 12 people”.

“Insurance companies have now an nounced that they will not insure Western Samoa against future disasters from cyclones. This is the type of climatic event scientists have told us to expect to increase with the advent of global warming . . . Western Samoa had already suffered and continues to suffer the painful effects of what it believes were the adverse effects of induced climate change.” Only 20 per cent of buildings in Apia are constructed to meet the type of cyclone-resistant standards that lenders are now insisting on.

Most insurance companies reinsure their risks on the world market, but NPTs general manager, David Russell, referred to the difficulties in finding anyone prepared to take the risk. Since most modern means of finance, for homes, businesses, require insurance, or unaffordable anti-cyclone structures, this problem could pose a major threat to the development of the Pacific islands.

The AOSIS (Alliance of Small Island States) countries proposed that the nations which produce the greenhouse gases should contribute to a fund to insure investment in the islands. □