corruption debate

Samoa drawn into the IOC corruption debate

By Alan Ah Mu

UTAH, Stockholm,

Berlin. Hardly everyday

names to sports fans in Apia - until this year especially when the spreading stain of a bribery scandal rocking the Olympic movement reached their shores.

Seiuli Paul Wallwork is a rarity. He is the only Samoan to hold a Commonwealth Games medal and until recently the only Islander to do so in the region - a South Seas islander in the International Olympic Committee (IOC), whose members decide where Olympic Games are held.

Seiuli went before the lOC’s session on March 17 to try and clear himself of alle gations of corruption relating to a loan, an airline ticket and medical treatment for his daughter while on Olympic business for which an investigation has last month rec ommended that he be removed from the lOC for. , “I want to defend myself and clear my name,” said Seiuli before leaving for the session, “and then resign.”

Six weeks of being hassled and talked about to the detriment of his family was proving too much for the former weightlifting champion, an lOC member since 1987.

“The truth is I have had enough of the thing,” he said. “I do not think it is fair on my family.”

Seiuli predicted that even if he escaped negative judgment by the lOC session, where removal requires a two-thirds majority, some other charge might crop up next year.

His defence before the session might well resemble that he gave in a media con ference in February as news that he was in trouble reached Apia.

While in Stockholm, Sweden, to judge that city’s bid for the Olympic Games,

Seiuli accepted a gift over the SUSISO limit allowed in the form of a doctor’s bill for his daughter which the bidders paid for.

“To me it is incredible,” he told reporters. “Even just to think about it.”

“We did not call a doctor because it was just a head cold,” Seiuli said. “But they (bidders) insisted that the doctor come to see her, check her out. I think they were trying to impress us.”

Seiuli said it was within the rules for organisers of bids to pay expenses of their guests.

He would never ask guests to pay for a doctor if they fell ill and had he been required to pay for his daughter’s treatment he would easily have done so.

The doctor saw his daughter for 15 min utes and was so quick he did not even sit down during the visit, said Seiuli.

“He gave us some tablets,” he said.

“But we already had our own tablets - I always travel with them.”

The loan from Salt Lake City Organising Committee (SLOC) vice presi dent Tom Welch to Seiuli was made in November 1991 when there was no bid ding for any games on.

“Our families are very, very good friends,” he said. “We knew them well before then.”

The loan was an issue between two peo ple and it has been repaid, said Seiuli, who added that he did not know of the “transac tion” until years after it had been made.

“It had nothing to do with Salt Lake City (it’s bid). It was a personal loan from Tom Welch for an issue that I am not going to go into. It is in fact outside of the lOC jurisdiction, it is outside of anybody else’s jurisdiction, so it is outside of the press jurisdiction as well. And we have already explained it to the lOC - it is very clear.”

Scurrilous accusations regarding air plane tickets the Berlin Bid Committee (for

the 2000 Olympic games) sent for him and his brother to travel to Berlin, surfaced first in 1995, said Seiuli.

“I could not believe when I read it the first time in 1995. Unfortunately now we are reading it again - in 1999.”

He tried to fight accusations in the German press, Berlin House of Representatives and State Auditor General’s office, that his brother did not go to Berlin and his ticket not returned by sending photos of them at venues they both visited in the city - “everywhere in Berlin”.

“But of course that does not satisfy these journalists. They have got to obvi ously destroy you.”

Seiuli said the lOC arranged the tickets which were paid through them - from Samoa to Los Angeles, “and from Los Angeles to Berlin they hand-carried the tickets to us to Los Angeles”.

“I just cannot understand how such a story can come about when the facts are those.”

Seiuli said he has often wondered why the press in west focuses on “any little thing” about developing countries, includ ing the hurtful things they have written about he and his family.

That was his defence to the media in Samoa before he left to offer it to his peers in Switzerland.

A newspaper editorial in Samoa recent ly recommended that Seiuli resign as head of the Ministry of Sports, Youth and Culture, as president of the Samoa Olympic Committee and as president of the Samoa Sports Federation. “He should surrender these posts willingly to avoid causing more damage,” the editorial said.

Meanwhile an independent investiga

tion into Sydney officials has recently con cluded with a. result that will please the Australians. None of their officials are likely to be discharged from lOC. ■