A federal government audit has found that American Samoa is not fully utilizing the airport’s Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) training center, which is a state-of-the-art facility, and recommends  that the government formulate a plan to activate the training center as soon as possible.

The ARFF facility, constructed with Federal Aviation Administration grant funding of about $10 million and completed a few years ago, is one of the issues covered in the FAA’s land use audit and inspection carried out last year for the Pago Pago International Airport.

Since it was constructed, the ARFF facility has remained “idle and underutilized”, according to the audit report, which points out that the funding and planning of the facility was aimed to serve two purposes — the first is to provide airport firefighters with a means “to maintain the skills and qualifications” required by federal regulations. Additionally, it was built to make training easier and cheaper by eliminating the travel time and cost to go off island to obtain federally required training.

The second purpose of the facility, the report says, was it was supposed to serve as a regional training center and provide a more convenient location for fire departments from other South Pacific nations to visit American Samoa to train, enhance and refresh essential ARFF skills.

“These visitors would pay for training and provide revenue to the airport to subsidize or defray the cost of operating the regional training center,” the report states. “Unfortunately, the objectives of the regional training center have not been achieved.”

According to the audit report, provisions of federal law require that equipment and facilities acquired with a grant must be used by the grantee for the purpose they were acquired, whether or not the project continues to be supported by federal funds.

It also makes clear that the grant obligation remains in full force throughout the useful life of the facilities developed with the grant, but not to exceed 20 years.

According to a  provision of the Grant Assurance, the facility should be serving to make the airport more self-sustaining because the ARFF could both save and make money for the airport.

Furthermore, the cost of training ARFF personnel would be reduced because they could meet a provision of federal training requirements in American Samoa using the airport facility and not travel off island to get training. Additionally, the airport could increase revenue by having firefighters from the region attend training at the Pago Pago regional training center.

The territory’s economy would also benefit from expenditures made by these visitors for food and lodging, it says.

For these reasons, the report says the ARFF “should be activated and promoted to reap the full benefits of its presence in the territory.” Since the training center is far too elaborate to be used for only local airport firefighters, it should be used for the purpose for which it was built, that is, a regional ARFF facility, the audit further states.

The FAA recommends that ASG should formulate a plan to activate the training center as soon as possible. “Also ASG will need the services of the appropriate professionals to market the training center in the South Pacific, plan the training programs and curriculum and coordinate the visitation of firefighters to Tutuila and the training center,” it says.

In his written address to the Fono last month, Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga said the Port Administration has convinced FAA management that American Samoa “will devotedly utilize” the ARFF training center which was “abandoned after it was constructed”.

He said the “fundamental goal” of the training center was to attract airport firefighters from the Pacific region to come to American Samoa for training, as this is a one of its kind in the Pacific — with the intention of generating additional income for the Airport.

Meanwhile, the governor says construction of the Ofu Airport Rescue and Firefighting Facility, which will cost $4.2 million funded by an FAA grant submitted by the Port Administration, will be completed before the end of 2015.