Samoa PM talks about stability, tourism and future

Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi has congratulated the Bank South Pacific (BSP) for its rapid growth in the region.

Speaking during a function to end the Bank’s Board meeting held in Samoa, Prime Minister Tuilaepa acknowledged the Bank’s chairperson, Sir Kostas Constantinou for their interest in Samoa.

“I believe that Sir Kostas has taken Samoa on board to be a place to invest most probably because Samoa has a very stable government,” Mr Tuilaepa said.

“If that is the basis, then Sir Kostas, I think you should come to Samoa only because we will continue to be a very stable government for a long time.

“The simple reason is because we have managed to put through a lot of amendments to our Constitution to ensure that the usual condition that leads to instability in government, the usual cause for this has already been enacted in our laws to prevent such instability in the future.”

Mr Tuilaepa said it is great to know that Sir Kostas chose Samoa as a venue for their meeting.

“There is no better way to know a place unless you come here yourself and experience the way we live and do business in Samoa. Instability normally comes through members of Parliament who cannot stick to one party but keep shifting from one party to another depending on what a Member of Parliament can get,” said Mr Tuilaepa.

But Samoa has managed to come up with a solution.

“So we have solved that problem by changing our laws to make that extremely difficult. So if you do want to shift, it means you have to declare your seat vacant and go back and face the election.”

Mr Tuilaepa said politicians who are undecided about where they want to stand causes instability in many governments.

“But we think we have solved that problem. So for a long time into the future we should continue to see stable governments running our country.” He then moved to the issue of tourism and Virgin Australia and the joint venture with the Samoa government. “There are many good prospects here to invest particularly in the area of tourism. It is a reason why we took a bold step recently to terminate our joint venture with Virgin Airline, because we know they have not performed to the expectation we had in the beginning.