Hie passport saga continues...

Scandal

By Chris Peteru

In the wake of an ongoing pass port scandal, documents tabled in the New Zealand par liament by Labour MP Trevor Mallard show New Zealand police had been observing the movements of a Samoan diplomat arriving in Auckland carrying tens of thousands of US dol lars.

Other papers show that Samoan officials knew in July of thousands of missing pass ports over the past seven years but said

nothing.

The documents released by Mallard were given to him by opposition leader Tuiatua Tamasese. They explain how a Samoan government

official was asked to carry out checks by government secretary Vaasatia Komiti.

From 1991-97, the official concluded that about 4442 pass ports were missing along with about 10 receipt books.

When the illegal sale of passports to Chinese nationals in Hong Kong for up to SUSSO,OOO each was revealed in April, Komiti was adamant fewer than a hundred passports were involved.

"Everything is under control,” the prime minister reassured international media from a regional meeting in the Cook Islands. Nevertheless, within hours of Mallard releasing the information, deputy PM Tunaepa Sanete was winging his way to Hong Kong for two weeks. No official explanation was given for the trip.

Tamasese who has harassed the Human Rights Protection Party leaders to tears over the scam, intimates the scandal reach es into the heart of PM Tofilau Eti Alesana's administration. For now, Tamasese looks to having the inside run ning over a government stonewalling after having said from the outset that no top offi cials, that is cabinet ministers, consuls or

department directors, were involved.

So far, chief immigration officer Tuipoloa Suisala, his senior officer Maiava Toifu and junior officer Miliona Tagaloa have been the only ones officially charged.

The men face a total of 65 counts, includ ing theft and fraud, in the supreme court with a trial set for May of next year.

State prosecutor Potoae Tanielu, who will be representing the government over the matter, was surprised at the massive number of passports said to be missing.

“I don’t know how they came up with that number, no specific number can be gotten because Treasury’s investigation has not been completed,” she said.

Although Alesana has held the immigra tion portfolio for eight years, the govem

merit has continually played down specula tion of top-level involvement as bump kin. Malielegaoi describes the scandal as the small-time work of professional criminals in Hong Kong.

And while an ongoing five-month police investigation by Samoa’s finest is being carried out almost exclusively in Samoa, only snail-like progress is being made in con nection with how local officials could sell pass ports overseas so easily.

“Of course, the government is just con taining the investigation as a damage con trol measure,” says one official.

Concern by New Zealand police about the diplomat's movements shows they were on the trail much longer than their island counterparts. An accountant, and keen ten nis player, the diplomat did a political cartwheel in 1995 while a key supporter of a national campaign protesting the cost of living brought on by a goods and services tax. Government opponents say his appointment was little more than a pay-off for switching allegiances.

Soon after his appointment, NZ police say he arrived in Auckland on three occa sions between November and January, including Christmas Eve, carrying a total

of $U552,000 in cash. Confidential docu ments indicate the diplomat flew between Hong Kong and Auckland no fewer than 13 times from the end of 95 until March this year.

NZ detective Cath Kara wrote to Samoa’s police commissioner, Galuvao Tanielu, about the amount of cash being brought into Auckland, saying the letter was sent as a matter of courtesy.

NZ police checks show the diplomat was also wanted for an interview relating to the theft of funds at a Samoan-based company. In another paper the diplomat was linked with a Hong Kong company said to handle investment migration appli

cations to Samoa.

An Australian, Sam Salpietro, in a letter dated May 29, 1996 to Samoa’s then Australian high com missioner, Fe’esago Fepuleai, says he had been advised a com pany called Four Seasons Investment Consultancy was the authorised migration agent in Hong Kong for the Samoa consul.

“This was a sur prise to me, as I had written to your office this year to ask about this matter and was advised Western Samoa had no such programme.”

On arriving in

Hong Kong,

Salpietro was sur prised to find adver tisements plugging the sale of Samoan passports for up to

SUSSO,OOO each. His office had contacted a number of sub-agents marketing Samoan migration and had discovered that fees of up to SUS2O,OOO were being charged by sub-agents on top of the amount to be paid to Four Seasons.

He later met with two company execu tives, B C Tan and Berry Ko, who advised they were authorised agents for the hon orary consul and were given pamphlets showing a list of countries allowing visa free entry to holders of Samoan passports.

“Although the sub-agents’ fees were very attractive, we had some concerns over

the practice of paying the fee to an agent rather than the consul,” Salpietro said in the letter.

It is understood that since the scan went public, the Four Seasons offices that had been only metres away from the Samoan consulate in Lockhart Road, Wanchai, have moved to another Hong Kong address, trading under a different name.

Adding more confusion to an already diabolical situation is the new consulate to Australia, Dr Leiataua Eteuati, who wrote a letter to the PM, dated September 8 this year that appeared in a local news story. If correct, Dr Eteuati suggested some 500 missing passports meant for the 49 MPs and their wives were not missing, but had

been rejected in favour of diplomatic ones.

The rationale behind that notion suggests it won’t be long before passports start appear ing in McDonalds Happy meals. But what the MPs and their wives would want with five passports each is mystifying.

For the public it means the humiliation of hav ing their passports scrutinised by foreign countries like NZ who hold plenty of negative attitude towards Samoans. For the PM and the region’s elder statesman, it means being labelled “Dr Passport” for some time to come.

During his visit to cel ebrate the Treaty of Friendship, NZ coali tion PM Jim Boldger

said the matter was entirely a domestic issue.

The oppposition Labour party raised the case of a Chinese national who arrived in Auckland in 1993 with a Samoan pass port concealed in her trousers. The woman said she worked as a clothing cutter in Apia, and that her employer had paid SUSSOOO for the passport.

Mallard said: “Illegally obtained Samoan passports may enable undesirable persons to enter New Zealand without proper checks. The scam has to be stopped.” ■

Opposition leader Tuiatua Tamasese gave documents to Mallard