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Governor establishes Compliance Review Committee to oversee COVID-19 spending

Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga
fili@samoanews.com

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — To ensure American Samoa’s full compliance with the millions of dollars in federal coronavirus funds, Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga has established the government’s six-member COVID-19 Compliance Review Committee (C19CRC).

“In light of the extraordinary amount of federal funding assistance transmitted to American Samoa to combat the deadly effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it behooves us to adopt protocols to ensure that abuse and misuse of any penny of these funds are preempted,” Lolo said in a May 12th memo establishing the committee.

According to the governor, the C19CRC is charged with the overall primary responsibility of making sure that every expenditure of COVID-19 funds is thoroughly justified and fully in compliance with the grants’ terms and conditions.

Moreover, the committee will review whether established COVID-19 policies, rules, guidance and advisories are fully complied with meticulously. Additionally, existing government policies connected with the procurement of supplies and services must also be exhaustively reviewed to ensure full compliance.

“In times of crisis, adherence to established policies are sometimes lax hence it is important that in our haste to procure supplies and services we don’t compromise the integrity of our system of internal controls,” the governor wrote in the memo to cabinet members.

According to the governor, the committee is empowered to access all coronavirus related expenditure transactions, and all relevant documents connected with the particular transaction will be made available as well, without hesitation. And the committee is responsible directly to the governor and its reports are to the “governor specifically”.

“All government entities receiving coronavirus funds must practice full transparency and accountability by providing every support to the C19CRS when information is requested for the committee’s review,” he explained.

The committee is led by Robert Ho Chee, who is the Commissioner of the ASG Office of Financial Institutions. The members are Blanche Lulu Barber, executive director of the American Samoa Economic Development Authority; Lefotu Vila from the Treasury Department; Territorial Audit Office executive director Liua Fatuesi; as well as Alva S. Laulu and La Arny Ly Matienzo — both from the Territorial Audit Office.

The governor says more members will be added as deemed necessary by the committee, whose work started on May 12th and its scope of coverage starts when the first COVID-19 state of emergency declaration was issued.

Lolo has directed the committee to prepare weekly reports due Monday of each week detailing its work done during the relevant week.