Help on the tsunami front line ... Losi Valevale, 78, of Vailoa Aleipata shows a design of her house to be built by the Samoan government and aid donor partners. Photo: Savali

Pacific.Scoop
Opinion – By Tupuola Terry Tavita in Apia

Legendary circus man BT Barnum once said a sucker is born every minute.

He might as well have said a stupid reporter and his equally stupid editor get suckered every minute.

Because that’s the vibe coming across when reading these half-cooked stories some of Samoa’s local media has been churning out.

We’d like to think that journalism is a respectful profession, its proponents bent on seeking the actual truth.

Now it’s been reduced to sitting in a newsroom waiting for anybody with a sob story to print. Sticking a microphone in front of any stirrer with an axe to grind and running off to file.

This week our daily newspaper quoted  Porirua publicity-seeking Litea Ah Hoi who appeared to have been on a fly-by-night tour of Samoa drumming up stories about the government’s  relief efforts to boost her ratings with the electorate back home in New Zealand.

Among the many unsubstantiated allegations:

“There are some horror stories in Samoa about truckloads full of goods that are supposed to be taken directly to the villages and the deliverers are actually selling them off into shops, which I just find completely appalling and unacceptable,” she told the Dominion Post.

Grandstanding issues
If it’s any indication of this sort of character, a  simple google search will reveal Ah Hoi’s history of grandstanding issues.

NZ's Litea Ah Hoi ... claims over aid. Photo: Mana Foundation

As responsible journalists, we’d like to ask Litea Ah Hoi and the local daily which picked up and republished the Dominion story- when were these alleged deliveries supposed to had taken place?

Which were they? Which shops were they sold to? Did she see it?

Does she know anybody who saw it? Who? Who were those supposedly involved?

Isn’t that what investigative journalists – as the local daily promotes themselves -  supposed to ask?

We called up the Porirua City Council to ask Ah Hoi these exact questions. Unfortunately – or rather fortunately in her case – she wasn’t there. We left a message on her answering machine but no response had been received by press time.

These are very serious allegations she has made. And if she cannot substantiate them, then what does that make the media who published her claims?

For the last few days Savali has been traversing the affected regions not only at Falealili but the greater Aleipata area.

Rugged terrain
We went to the remotest relocated settlements – some 4 to 5 km inland – through rugged terrain in wet conditions.

The objective was to ask those who were most in need of assistance if aid was coming through.

Food and water and other essential needs are getting through we found, but responses were mixed.

Most were thankful not only to the government but to donor agencies and Samoans overseas while others were deliberately telling untruths.

One family told us that they hadn’t received any food delivery in three weeks – the last, only a bag of rice they told us.

However, Savali noted three bags of rice unscrupulously hidden underneath a pile of clothes. Upon enquiry, there was also a bag of flour, a half-bag of sugar, some four boxes of tuna and other food items under the pile.

“Oh, those were from our relatives in New Zealand,” they said.

We knew they weren’t telling the truth as we recognised the food brands as those being distributed by either the government or Red Cross. We left and did not press for more answers.

Selfish benefits
No doubt these are the sort of people Ah Hoi spoke to, if indeed there is any truth to what she told the Dominion.
The reality is, like everywhere else in the world, we are not a country of angels. Some people, with the emphasis on some, will take advantage of any situation for their own selfish benefit – that they would tell untruths to aid deliverers to get more aid.

Double-checking on delivery lists – and the National Disaster Office already has a comprehensive list of all those affected by the tsunami – will reveal that many of those crowing about not getting any assistance are actually receiving regular deliveries.

Furthermore, village councils at Saleaumua, Lalomanu and Saleapaga have issued decrees where any shop found to have received, least sell tsunami aid will immediately cease operations.

Those who try to sell goods at these shops  will also be punished.

In fact, if any bus is found to have tsunami goods destined for somewhere else on board, then the bus driver and company will be punished.

While the tsunami took virtually everything from many of the people out there, it has not taken away their sense of morality in putting to good use others’ charity given to them.

Water politics
The issue of water is not all cut and dry as the media is making it out to be.

People have moved from the coast up to their farmlands. The settlements not only are dispersed but in very rugged terrain. Getting to people, never mind trying to locate them, is a challenge in itself.

Though the water trucks are coming through, it’s not on the daily basis those remote resettlers  want. It’s a mammoth ordeal, given the logistics involved, the terrain, and the condition of the track roads, not to mention it’s a huge area to cover.

People also want to wish up piped water which they forget involves extensive negotiations of land ownership issues (the whole area is under customary land ownership), the drawing up of logistical plans, the clearing of land, the laying of kilometers of pipelines that cannot be done overnight, not to mention the huge costs involved.

Who’s going to pay for it?

As for the so-called “truckloads full of goods” that are being sold to shops by deliverers, as Litea Ah Hoi alleges, we visited the Disaster Management headquarters at Tuanaimaito to see if such an incident was possible.

It was certainly no casual operation they’re running up there. The controls we found out were pretty tight.

All goods coming in are recorded by Treasury officials who have a desk at the entrance. So is every item, every delivery that goes out. Each delivery truck is accompanied by a policeman and an audit officer. In the village every item has to be signed by the recipient.

Cross-checking
Two days later, a follow up team crosschecks with the recipients if indeed the signed item/items had been received.

It’s hard enough for one item to go out unrecorded or go missing on the delivery line, but “truckloads full of goods” being sold to shops? We seriously doubt it.

But all this information can easily be obtained by the local media if they took the time to go out and do some real investigative work. The DMO officers, despite their hectic work, are more than happy to show them around, and explain to them what they are doing and how.

All the procedures involved are clearly spelled out in the National Disaster Management Plan.

The unnerving feeling that’s coming across, and one many people on the tsunami recovery rank and file know all too well, is that they are deliberately being painted as corrupt, incompetent and dishonest – so that some figures in the media industry can hold themselves up as champions of honesty and integrity.

In light of the Prime Minister’s comments on the level of reporting that has taken place, the local daily has now gone ga-ga, accusing the Prime Minister of belittling their work, their intelligence (whatever that level is).

Has it not occurred to them that the unsubstantiated reports they been running also belittles the very efforts of the hundreds of people who have been working on the emergency and recovery frontline for more than four weeks now, day and night?

Is it too big an ask for them to publish balanced stories without being spun that government is trying to gag them?

The real victims in this event are those affected by the tsunamis. The real heroes are those on the emergency and recovery frontline, day and night away from their families, committed for the benefit of others.

Tupuola Terry Tavita is editor of the Samoan government newspaper Savali. This editorial was published in the October 28 edition.

Samoan families wait for aid – Dominion Post