Police target the ‘confidential rubbish’ whistleblower

Staff Reporters

APIA, SAMOA – 21 JUNE 2021: The man who blew the whistle on Government ‘confidential rubbish’ dumped at the Tafa’igata rubbish dump two weeks ago, said he is now the target of the police.

This comes after the Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry of Customs and Revenue, Matafeo Avalisa Viali-Fautua’alii said in a Public Notice in the weekend that “Given the seriousness of the act to remove our ‘confidential rubbish’ illegally from the disposal site, we have now lodged a complaint to the Ministry of Police and an investigation is now ongoing.”

But the man who brought the public’s attention to the documents said he is concerned as a Samoan matai and citizen when he noted that dates and years of the documents to be as recent as 2020. He said he believed he acted out of the public’s interest.

Talamua understands the man has engaged a lawyer as he said police had visited his home at Siumu twice when he was not there.

The waste documents have been publicized on social media forum mainly the Facebook, since Saturday 12^th June or Sunday 13^th June 2021.

According to Matafeo, the documents contain various taxpayers’ information and these were ‘confidential waste documents’ resulted from paper usage through; Printing, Photocopying, Draft correspondences with taxpayers, Internal memorandums on work matters, etc. which were used by officers during their reviews, amendments, reconciling and testings, reassessment and drafting works and therefore were not required to be filed as records but are stored in our ‘confidential waste bins’.

“The confidential waste bags publicly posted and shared on Facebook, was part of the confidential rubbish that were sent to be disposed off at the Tafaigata landfill on Thursday 10^th June 2021.

“In the presence of various officials, ten (10) confidential rubbish bags were buried deep into the landfill.  Sadly and unfortunately, some of these ‘confidential rubbish’ were presumably dug up and illegally removed from the disposal site by someone and later posted on the Facebook.”

Legal opinion given Talamua said official approval should have been obtained to destroy or dump the documents under the Public Information and Archives Act 2011 and there is a process in place.

But the issue that arose is whether that approval was obtained and process followed and why the documents (as recent as 2020) had to be dumped at this time and under a caretaker government’s watch.

Matafeo however is “seeking the public’s support in making sure all posts containing photos of these waste documents with our Ministry’s logo and name on it, are removed from Facebook by either deleting the post(s), report post and cease sharing or forwarding those photos.”

But the man who brought the matter to the public’s attention is determined that he had a duty as a citizen to act in the public interest and he wondered if the ‘owner’ can still claim ownership of the ‘confidential rubbish’ after discarding it.