Ghostwriters and the priorities for P.M. Tuilaepa’s administration

By Mata'afa Keni Lesa 20 February 2018, 12:00AM

Poor Prime Minister Tuilaepa. It appears that he and his Government are obsessed with these Ghostwriters and what they are saying in their faceless blogs and social media pages. 

If you were to follow the trail of media coverage during the past few months, you could be forgiven for thinking that Prime Minister Tuilaepa and his administration have nothing better to do than to wait for the next blog or Facebook post. 

You wonder then what time they actually have to do some real work? 

No wonder prisoners are running away at will and conspiring to break out of Tafaigata en masse? 

No wonder why corruption, collusion and abuse are rife in certain places in the public service as identified by the Controller and Auditor General and the Officers of Parliament Committee investigation? By the way, these reports have never been dealt with properly at all.

But then, who has time to monitor those things when they’ve only got eyes for the next sensational post? Who has time to fix the problems associated with flooding at the Vaisigano River when there are bloggers and online enemies to chase down? 

Now speaking of Vaisigano, isn’t it heart breaking that since Cyclone Evan in 2012, that the Government hadn’t learnt a single thing about how to contain the flooding in the area? 

In fact, looking at the flooding of three weeks ago, things had gotten worse.

What have they been doing all this time? Didn’t we tell you that all those meetings and workshops always often amount to nothing? 

Whatever they say now, it doesn’t matter. The fact is that since 2012, the Government had an opportunity to better prepare members of the community for another eventuality of the sort. And yet when it arrived in the form of Cyclone Gita, the lack of remedial action was found woeful. It remains a miracle that no lives were taken. 

Still, the question remains, how long can we continue down this path? What if another flooding strikes in a few weeks? Will we be ready? These are tough questions. We know that. 

But these are questions we’d rather prefer the Government to be dealing with as opposed to them wasting time and energy on Ghostwriters.

It would be interesting to find out just how much taxpayers monies have been spent on internet costs following and chasing after these faceless bloggers, which they don’t seem to have had much success in identifying.

Come to think of it, you have to begin to feel sorry for Prime Minister Tuilaepa and the Government. In their haste to track down these faceless bloggers – which we hope they do for good measure – they are making themselves even more vulnerable to questions and public ridicule. 

How? It’s simple. 

Since they don’t know who they are dealing with, or whom they are addressing, why are they even wasting their time? How can you try to rationalise with a ghost? Who is the “idiot” here?

The simple truth is that ghosts and human beings don’t go hand in hand. They don’t speak the same language. Which is why we reckon Prime Minister Tuilaepa and his Government would be better off moving on to solve some of the more pertinent challenges that we see in Samoa everyday.

Issues like street vendors and child slavery. 

More and more young people are being used as slaves by their parents and others to sell all sorts of goods on the streets day and night, risking their lives. What is being done about this?

There are health issues, bordering on crisis level. Non-communicable diseases are spiraling out of control. We’ve been talking about this for years and yet we don’t seem to be making any meaningful progress. If anything, the statistics point to a nation that is becoming sicker by the day. Wouldn’t it be better to focus more energy on a concise plan of action that could actually lead to real results?

Elsewhere, Prime Minister Tuilaepa could also look at cutting the cost being spent on his administration. When you consider a nation of less than 200,000 people, don’t you think the amount of money and resources spent on officials is exorbitant? Think of the salaries, perks, vehicles, travel and much, much more. Say you are a businessman and the government was your business; would you run your business the same way?

Now think of poverty, struggles and hardship in this country today. Think of the people who don’t have access to water, electricity and access to basic health care. 

Isn’t it a crying shame that while the Government is wasting time on these trivial online matters and yet Samoa is slipping backwards when it comes to its priorities? What do you think?

Have a wonderful Wednesday Samoa, God bless!

By Mata'afa Keni Lesa 20 February 2018, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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