COMMENT: A Divided Cabinet, EPC Shambles and a State of Emergency?

By Lance Polu/

28 March 2025 – When Olo Fiti Vaai told the Speaker that the Government was walking out of parliament in protest against the Speaker rejecting his vote of no confidence motion on 7 March 2025, one caught a glimpse of the Prime Minister, signaling down the Deputy Prime Minister Tuala Iosefo Ponifasio, and they remained the only members of Cabinet left in the House.

By a signal, other Opposition MPs followed Olo out of the House.

The Leader of the Opposition, however, did not want to be seen to be towing Olo’s line and remained seated.

Furthest away from the Speaker, were the solid breakaway 20 FAST MPs who had all been terminated from their ministerial and political associate posts. Their rather woeful predicament is that they are unwillingly propping up a minority government that they have no more say in the day to day running – problems and all; including the embarrassing power outages now facing the whole of Upolu Island.

What was the message?

Olo was the one making the calls in Cabinet.

Olo who claimed in parliament as the founder of the FAST Party, may have instilled and held confidence in the minority government cabinet as pressure built up from the breakaway 20 FAST MPs. So there had been behind the scenes dealings and offers to the FAST 20 implicating the DPM and may have exerted further mistrust within the top echelons of government leadership.

Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa and the Deputy Prime Minister, Tuala Iosefo Ponifasio in parliament.

But after Fiame and Government survived the two votes of no confidence, the powerplay seemingly shifted.

Then a major power outage cut short Sunday church services and had many households and businesses without power for ten hours straight.

The worst however was to come. But in his carefree manner, Olo portrayed the problem as limited to damaged high powered underground cables between Fiaga and Fuluasou installed in 2012 and electricity transmission only needed to be shifted to overhead power lines and things would be back to normal.

But when the degree and seriousness of the problem got to him, he spoke of a Commission of Inquiry to look into the root(s) of the problems and to find out who (in EPC) was lying and did not giving him the full information.

PM WAVES OFF OLO’s INQUIRY
Then the PM, in as just as Olo’s carefree manner, waved the inquiry suggestion off telling the media that she knew nothing about an Inquiry from Olo or to Cabinet.

Fiame asked the media what was there for an Inquiry to find out when it is now clear that as of 15 March, three key generators broke down all at once? This resulted in a total loss of 10 MW in power supply and EPC had to ration power to manage the limited electricity available.

The information from EPC implies there had been no maintenance over time, no spare parts in stock and spare parts take up to 12 months to deliver. Why wasn’t EPC able to do all these things to avoid the major and embarrassing situation we all are victims to.

The PM felt no need to look into allegations of sabotage as suggested by the Opposition Leader in parliament. Why the state of EPC power generation suddenly dived over the last five years despite major investments in the Fiaga Power Station and in alternative/solar power energy sources, where EPC had to pay more to buy electricity per unit than what it sold the consumers.

There are still a handful of former EPC CEOs still in Samoa, former engineers and consultants, accountants who can provide information if there is an investigation so not only to get to the bottom of the current problem but to avoid it happening again.

STATE OF EMERGENCY
Then this week, we hear suggestions of a state of emergency from the Minister of Finance.

We have had some ominous experiences with previous state of emergency during the measles epidemic in 2019 and Covid 2020 pandemic. Some of those in power misused that power and some were making money out of our gloomy national experience.

But declaring a state of emergency out of the failure of a public funded electricity utility to deliver what it has been mandated to deliver is totally unnecessary. Infact if it was elsewhere, there would already be a few heads rolling – starting from the Minister himself.

As a public funded utility with multimillion dollar resources, EPC is at the exposure of officials, businesses and those in power to manipulate. There have been reports of middlemen who had been paid for just being middlemen for suppliers of expensive equipment to EPC and placed the corporation in difficulties when ordering parts and maintenance.

EPC has a chilling past and those of us who have been around remember an HRPP Minister who was assassinated for a mere tree cutting contract.

PERSONAL DAMAGES & COST TO THE ECONOMY
This government needs to seriously reconsider the need to get into the real roots of the current problem. The real cost of these outages to the national economy would be enormous, the disruption to daily family lives, to schools, hospitals and businesses and the cost to damaged household and business electronic equipment is the cost we need to know. Then, how long will this take to restore a reliable electricity supply as expected?

Despite the current political climate where survival is the government’s priority, one needs to do the right thing.

Since getting into power in July 2021, the FAST government has brought the country’s foreign debt from $1.2 billion in 2021 down to $800 million in 2024. So accessing loan funds to address the current power outage fiasco should not be a problem.

So to use the current power outages to declare a State of Emergency for Upolu Island, is uncalled for.

A major part of the problem now is that government money supply is running thin because there was no Supplementary Budget – and cost cutting in all government ministries and outside contracts is already in motion. That is the real emergency. And that is what the Minister of Finance and government need to explain to the people.