Saga of the sacked

The Region

Saga of the sacked Auditor-General

By Alan Ah Mu

Four months have passed, yet the Western Samoan Government has not heeded an urgent call by mem bers of the public to either sack the sus pended Controller and Chief Auditor, or reinstate him.

Taxpayers are demanding to have a chief auditor back at work quickly to account for how their money was being spent.

Action is vital for the “just and efficient administration of the financial affairs of Western Samoa”, the Western Samoa Civil Liberties Society (WSCLS) urged to Prime Minister Tofilau Eti Alesana back in July.

But since suspending Sua Rimoni Ah Chong that month, the government has ignored the society’s concerns. Said WSCLS vice-president Anae Tony Pereira this month: “They should do the decent thing” and act.

The head of state, acting on the advice of the prime minister, may suspend a chief auditor when parliament is not is session, as was done. But under the constitution if parliament is in session, such a suspension becomes invalid at the end of the session and Sua “goes back to work”, Anae said.

That is if the chief auditor has not been

sacked by parliament during the session

first. This is hard to do because a two-third majority has first to establish that the chief auditor was misbehaving or suffering from an of infirmity of body or mind.

It would be up to the Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) government to find instances of misbehaviour by Sua, but the chief auditor is presently well enough to drive a motor vehicle almost daily. Not all of the 33 HRPP members of parliament in the 49-seat parliament, will vote to sack Sua, Independent MP and former cabinet minister Le Tagaloa Pita said, “because it would be very stupid”, and because some government MPs are related to Sua.

After seeing his 1994 report “inappro priately” dealt with, and after a year of dis may, disappointment in Tofilau, a “strong leader” he’d believed would respond bet ter, apprehension about a commission picked to review what he thinks are already clear-cut functions of the Chief Auditor, Sua, also worried about the fate of

future reports, sued.

His lawsuit seeks a supreme court rul ing on the specific duties of the audit office and the defendants towards audit reports. Because what the government did was to get parliament to hand the chief auditor’s controversial 1994 audit report to a commission of inquiry, rather than to the Public Accounts Committee.

Criticised for agreeing to a commission of inquiry, opposition leader Tuiatua Tupua Tamasese Efi, said that was inevitable because the government, with a

big majority, wanted it.

So he opted to argue - unsuccessfully as it turned out - for the commission’s mem bers to be appointed from overseas for the sake of impartiality.

Inexplicably the government-appointed

commission confirmed “in the main, the irregularities outlined by the Controller and chief auditor”, then accused him of

levelling “flimsily composed” charges

against the ministers and of having gone beyond his powers of investigation.

Polynesian Airlines, for instance, funded by taxpayers but mismanaged to the point of near bankrupting the country, was one of the areas taboo to him, the commission said.

It cleared seven ministers and top pub lic servants of wrongdoing.

Tofilau said it shouldn’t be that some one chosen to do the government’s work should continue to do so while dissatisfied with and questioning the government, in explaining Sua’s suspension without pay.

“And not only that but (someone) whose dissatisfaction has reached the court,” said.

In an interview with the Samoa Observer, opposition leader Tuiatua said the suspension was a “sinister plot to inhibit the independence of the audit office and to defend corruption by attacking the credibility and competence of the audit office”, The neglect of accountability for tax payers’ money will continue until the gov ernment assembles parliament to decide the chief auditor’s fate.

Waiting for the supreme court to settle the dispute could stretch the neglect for longer than the WSCLS wants, especially as the chief auditor has filed another law suit, this time against the prime minister and cabinet to challenge his suspension and with appeals by either parties possible.

The appeal Court sits once a year.

The only dispute settled fairly quickly

was government restoring first Sua’s pay, then his government vehicle, apparently bowing to the argument that both things were included in the chief auditor’s legal salary package which should not have been withheld since he was only suspend ed, not sacked.

As it is, even before the supreme court hears the lawsuits it has to deal with a motion the Attorney-General’s Office act ing for the defendants filed to have the Parliament struck out as a defendant in the first lawsuit, based on the argument “you can’t sue Parliament”, defence counsel

Marion Bailey explained briefly. The

motion is scheduled to be heard this month.

Meanwhile no audit report sanctioned by the chief auditor will be tabled in par liament this year not a unique lapse in the country’s history but it defies the require ment by the constitution that audit reports be tabled annually.

Appointing an acting controller and chief auditor, as government has done “is not good enough”, WSCLS said. The posi tion is not recognised by the constitution and thus leaves the appointee with no “security of tenure”, and, added Anae, open to “intimidation”.

Matters need not have reached this stage, WSCLS said. When the government and the chief auditor had a “very serious difference of opinion” the prime minister, should have asked the supreme court for its opinion on the matter as empowered by the constitution to do so.

“It is unfortunate” Tofilau did not refer the matter to the court for it then forced Sua to do that himself, said the society, whose opinion had input from its lawyer members, including Anae and president Lesatele Rapi Vaai, also president of the Western Samoa Law Society, ‘who has since been appointed a magistrates court judge, effective next year.

Prolonging the present “inaction”, WSCLS said could mean the government does not want a chief auditor in place “in blatant disregard of the constitutional requirement for one to be in place.” Or that the prime minister had “improperly exer cised” his power of suspension, and in the circumstances could be seen as “an inter ference with justice” since a “judicial review” is to be held about the dispute.