New Government Settles in with its $1.24Bn Budget Passed

By Lance Polu/

Apia, Samoa – 29 October 2025 – Parliament last night passed the $1.24bn 2025/2026 Budget Estimates that will fund the Government’s projects and activities for the remaining eight months of Samoa’s Pathway for Development.

The budget includes $1.8m per district for district development projects; increased social benefits in pension and disability payments; and a waste levy that comes into effect from 1 January next year.

Passed without amendments a little after 9.00 last night and within a 30-day state of emergency put in place after the previous minority government’s budget was rejected by parliament in May and called for an early election on 29 August.

Barely six weeks in office, the budget session put the new government to the test, especially the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, leading the government while the Prime Minister is on extended medical leave overseas.

Significantly, the Speaker came out with flying colours with his lucid, fair and decisive control of the House.

The sessions also aired the seasoned Opposition MPs vast experience and knowledge on the issues and processes that drew to highlight their policies and time when they were in Government.

Harrowing at times for the new government, were the disgracing inferences by the Opposition Leader that they were inexperienced, weak, unqualified and lacked tertiary degrees in order to run a government.

So seven days sitting, including nights sessions and heated debates at times.

Yesterday morning, a former cabinet minister and senior member of the Opposition Party was suspended for 24 hours for using a swear word while the Acting Prime Minister was speaking on the 23 October afternoon session.

Yesterday afternoon, the Opposition Leader Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi threatened to walk off with his party members as he felt the Speaker was not giving him enough time to air his views.

The Speaker was firm, pointing out that he was talking about something totally different and diverting the debate away from the issue.

the visiting students of Robert Louis Stevenson School with the Deputy Prime Minister, Toelupe Maoiautele Poumulinuku Onesemo in parliament.

The Opposition Leader also accused Cabinet Ministers of a conflict of interest inferring their involvement in businesses.

Acting Prime Minister, Toelupe Maoiautele Poumulinuku Onesemo, with a cool demeanor throughout the sessions, softly reminded the Opposition Leader and former Prime Minister of twenty-two years of his own actions where “awarding a contract to a son and a brother of a Cabinet Minister was considered not a conflict of interest then.”

When the first FAST Government came into office in July 2021, they were presented with a scenario where the CEO of the Ministry of Finance was the son of the former Prime Minister and Opposition Leader.

Finding it an untenable situation, the Minister of Finance, Mulipola Anarosa Ale Molioo had to call for the CEO’s resignation. After four months of a political impasse and given the political climate at the time, he can’t continue as the Governments top finance advisor when his father was the Leader of the parliamentary Opposition Party.

Pushing the conflict-of-interest notion, and the Oppositions language, somewhat impacts on the public servants and the general public.

The CEO of the Ministry of Finance and staff with the Minister, Mulipola Anarosa Ale Molioo after the budget was passed last night.

With the budget up to June 2026 now passed, the Government has to deliver on its election promises and what it will lay down in the next Pathway for Development 2026/2031 as it deals with a public service that had to adjust to a change of government in almost 40 years.

It also has to deal with the continuing political noise that somewhat baited the Fiame Government’s leadership into a split and pushed the country into a new chapter in its evolving political history.

Moving away now from funding under the State of Emergency, gives the new government renewed confidence in driving its already identified policies and projects forward.