Pima Prevention Partnership (PPP), an off island company, has threatened to report the Department of Health to the United States Inspector General’s office for failing to pay an outstanding balance of $247,124 owed to PIMA for a variety of technical services it provided for DOH. PPP’s Chief Financial Officer, Dr. John Carroll confirmed in an email to Samoa News last week that PPP provided services to DOH over the past few years and that the government owes them more than $200,000.

Pima Prevention Partnership is based out of Arizona and it’s a nationally recognized and award-winning non-profit agency, which has been creating conditions for change among youths, families, institutions, and community groups since 1992. It has offices and programs in Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona.

They also provide other services in Consultative Planning, and say they “are knowledgeable and experienced in building multi-cultural coalitions and facilitating broadly-inclusive citizen participation processes. Our staff has expertise in a wide variety of planning models and methods and has facilitated comprehensive processes for more than 60 different government, non-profit, and community organizations,” according to their website.

According to the information provided on the PPP website, since 2003, consultative planning services have been used to assist the U.S. Territory of American Samoa in planning for the Territory-wide delivery of home visiting services to assist at-risk families.

In a recent email to the DOH Acting Director, Motusa Tuileama Nua, PPP’s CEO, Claire Scheuren recalled their previous correspondence with their final demand for payment.

Samoa News reached out to PPP for a comment and documentation was provided such as the correspondence that the CEO was referring to, dated January 14, 2016.

In her letter the CEO informed the DOH Director that there were numerous attempts by PPP staff to communicate with him and his staff over the past two years.

“We have made no progress to this point in our attempt to collect the outstanding balance of $247,124 owed to our agency for work performed for various American Samoa Department of Health initiatives in 2012-2013.”

Samoa News understands that some of the DOH grants were written by PPP.

Scheuren referred the DOH Director to a memorandum issued by Attorney General Talauega Eleasalo Ale affirming that payment must be issued to PPP for all work performed.

According to the letter of the PPP CEO to the DOH director, “As you know Governor Lolo Matalasi Moliga has directed you to pay all outstanding invoices. It is absolutely imperative that arrangements be made to settle this debt. If full payment is not forthcoming the PPP will move to engage both Arizona’s US Senator Jeff Flake and US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General to investigate the DOH ‘s actions in this matter. 

“The Inspector General’s Office is responsible for investigating allegations of fraud and abuse of federal funds. We will of course also forward this to our attorneys to review and commence the appropriate legal procedures to collect these funds. That fraud has occurred, will be easily demonstrated since you have been paid in full by the respective funder but have failed and refused to pay the Pima Prevention Partnership for its services under the federal grants by which you were paid,” the PPP CEO wrote.

According to the memorandum issued by the Attorney General to Motusa dated back in 2014, he acknowledged that he has reviewed the various contracts between DOH and PPP. The AG pointed out that he also considered an analysis prepared by his staff and based on this information “it is my strong recommendation that the DOH should authorize this office (PPP) to negotiate settlement of the outstanding invoices.” The AG also said, “This matter has been lingering on for far too long and it’s time to bring it to a close.”

Calls to the DOH Director last week were not returned for comments on this case.