President responds to allegations of corruption, lack of accountability

The President of the Samoa Farmers Association (S.F.A), Afamasaga Fa’amatala Tole’afoa (pictured right), has responded to allegations of corruption, lack of accountability and transparency in the running of the Association.

The allegations were made in a statement issued to the media by a group of farmers who are setting up a rival association called the Samoa Farmers Federation. In the statement, S.F.F accused Afamasaga and the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Labour of corruption among other things. Mata’afa Keni Lesa put these questions to Afamasaga and this is what he said:

Sunday Samoan: Are you disappointed by the decision from those members of SFA to break away and form a new association? Is there room for two groups?

Afamasaga: Not at all. This should have happened a long time ago. It’s getting on to eight months now since this small and very vociferous group of no more than four people started destabilizing and undermining the organization in every possible way.

Fortunately for S.F.A., they are not exactly unknown to the public on the faults they now attribute to others, namely corruption and lack of accountability. People will make their own conclusions. S.F.A.’s position from the start was that the affairs of the association including the group’s complaints were best dealt with by the members.

An A.G.M. was scheduled to do just that but they wanted M.C.I.L. to take control using a process they proposed and M.C.I.L. accepted.

S.F.A .had reservations about the process but decided to go along with it if it meant bringing the issue to a head. That is what took place last Friday. But it seems the group is now complaining about the process they wanted and got. I attach copy of their letter to M.C.I.L. on the subject. As the saying goes, be careful with what you wish for in case it is granted to you.

As for having another farmer organization, there is any number of them at any one time although S.F.A. has established itself as the national farmer organization. Not too long ago, M.A.F. set up its own f farmer groups to compete with SFA. These are now defunct. So the behaviour is not new. We know only too well the challenges of running a modern styled community based organizations on a voluntary basis and on goodwill.

My only concern is the name and the likely confusion of having two “Samoa Farmer” organizations.

Samoa Farmer Association (S.F.A.) is temporarily registered at present under the name Farmers Samoa Incorporated (F.S.I.) to await availability of the S.F.A .name which a now defunct group had been registered under. The Registrar said the normal deregistration process had to be followed before the name can be used again. We’ve been told that process is now completed.

Sunday Samoan: What do you say to claims about lack of accountability and transparency? Is it true that the Association has not had an A.G.M for seven years?

Afamasaga: I need to go back a bit to when and how I took over as president to get the full picture.

I joined the SFA executive in the middle of 2009. By the end of the year, the then president had left for personal commitments elsewhere. The Secretary was asked to resign for misconduct. Soon after, another member of the executive also left. At the time S.F.A. had been selected by F.A.O. to be part of a regional project on linking farmers to markets. The project was already in its first year but S.F.A. had not yet got off the ground because the necessary paper work hadn’t been completed. I have some skills in the area so was asked to work on it and soon after S.F.A. started project activities. With an executive of four volunteers with full time employment elsewhere, I was asked to take a bigger leadership role for the group.

So effectively I took over in 2010 with a very severely depleted Executive. S.F.A .did not have paid staff, so management functions fell on the four remaining executive members. To meet the growing work load and to best utilize the skills available within the group, the then Treasurer had earlier on been appointed to manage S.F.A’.s expanding field operations. This would have a significant bearing on the quality of the book work and accounts later on and the delay in holding A.G.M.s.

Working directly with rural communities at farm and village levels is another contributing factor.

As seen by the meeting last Friday, village based farmers made up the bulk of the participants and membership of S.F.A. All programmes that operate at village level follow the normal protocols and customary formalities with the inevitable monetary donations to acknowledge village hospitality. It is clear that our accounting system fell down on ensuring that these transactions are properly receipted etc. The same happens with any moneys paid to farmers asked to prepare food for group training programmes in rural localities. Receipts are not easy to come by out there.

The second weakness in our accounts occurred when M.A.F. moved from the A.C.B. building to the T.A.T.T.E. building. M.A.F. had given S.F.A. a room at A.C.B. building where we set up an Office. The shift to TATTE was done at the end of 2012 without our knowledge with the result that all S.F.A. equipment, furniture and documents we had there were taken out with the M.A.F. stuff and we have never seen them again. We first knew about the shift when a M.A.F. A.C.E.O. delivered a few remaining bits (an electric jug, a water cooler and some papers) Subsequent enquiries as to the whereabouts of the rest of the stuff were unsuccessful. We have been successful in replacing the missing furniture and equipment through the generosity of F.A.O. and Yazaki Samoa.

But among the missing items were primary records without which completing our accounts for the years affected was a problem. This is reflected in the delay in holding the A.G.M.s for these years and the reference in the audited accounts about not being able to “verify 100% of total payments made as there were no supporting documents available”

Without the auditors’ report, it has not been possible to hold A.G.M.s for 4 years to end of December 2014 at least in the time that I was asked to fill a gap in leadership. But these accounts became available at end of 2014 and we scheduled an A.G.M. for March 2015. But M.C.I.L. had agreed to the special process requested by the disaffected group.

S.F.A. was instructed not to go ahead with the A.G.M., stop all other work and prepare for the Special A.G.M. held last Friday. The figure of 7 years now being touted as when A.G.M.s were not held is another of the overstatements and misinformation that’s been part of this campaign.

Sunday Samoan: In the press release issued by the group of farmers that have left S.F.A, they are making a lot of claims against you and S.F.A about the processes that led to Friday’s meeting. What do you say about it?

Afamasaga: As explained earlier this is exactly the process the breakaway group requested. S.F.A. did have reservations about the way the decision was made but decided to follow what the group wanted and adopted by M.C.I.L. S.F.A. had no part in the running of the meeting last Friday except we did proffer some advice on the method of voting in the interest of convenience and minimizing delay. See later explanation on this.

S.F.A. has three types of membership; individual, corporate and group membership. The bulk of the farmers that came were group members from village based groups. They were encouraged to attend by the M.C.I.L. quite extensive notices in the paper and TV. They also saw the opportunity to become individual members for $10.00 only as opposed to $70.00 when applying as an individual. S.F.A. also saw the opportunity and the interest shown as an opportunity to encourage registration to strengthen our own numbers.

When S.F.A. runs programmes at village level, all interested people are free to attend them. We saw the meeting last Friday as an opportunity to have all these farmers registered as SFA individual members and encouraged people to do so. Who they vote for was their own business but the chances were they would support the people they knew.

Sunday Samoan: There are even suggestions the voting was corrupt. What do you say?

Afamasaga: The meeting was conducted entirely by M.C.I.L. in accordance with rules and procedures it had put in place. As stated earlier these were also in line with the wishes of this very small but loud minority of members.

On the election of the S.F.A. executive and the voting, the S.F.A. executive did have people in mind that it felt could contribute to the work of the association given the absence of paid office staff, the disruption to this year’s programme, and the heavy work plan for the next three years. It also saw the need for an executive that represented all the main types of farming activities in Samoa such as livestock, crops, fruit and vegetable, floriculture etc. It also saw the need for gender balance and did openly lobby for enough women to be on the executive.

The majority of members did not know who these people were so we did suggest suitable executive committee member to those who asked. As it turned out, the voting was done and we got what we got warts and all.

As for the use of paper for voting, the process was discarded at S.F.A.’s suggestion, not because it was corrupt but in the interest of time, convenience and practicality.

We suggested instead a show of hands given the numbers involved, ease and convenience and practicality on the day. That was the method used in the end, so S.F.A. had no stake whatsoever in getting people to write candidate names on their voting paper before the candidates were known. But, one can understand the disappointment of the four key instigators of this campaign. The SFA executive is involved with smallholder farmers at village and at farm level throughout Samoa.

People know them and their work in the organization. That work is not perfect and the paperwork has been messy at times. The individuals in this small group on the other hand work only for themselves. The members don’t know them. Instead of crying foul at every turn and pointing the finger at everybody else, perhaps they should take a look in the mirror.

In fact S.F.A.’s biggest concern all along and the reason it has held its peace for all this time is the damage a handful of determined malcontents, with an agenda to pursue, easy access to a compliant and receptive media, and armed with the internet (social media) can cause to the organization. That agenda is now reconfirmed by the group’s latest release announcing the formation of another farmer organization.

Sunday Samoan: The auditor says he could not verify receipts and payments due to absence of accounting records. What do you say about this?

Afamasaga: The Auditor’s actual comment is that it cannot “verify 100% of total payments made as there were no supporting documents.” But I have already commented about these gaps in S.F.A.’s systems and the reasons. In fact since the meeting last Friday, work has continued with the auditors to address the issues raised.

I also note M.C.I.L.’s report in your newspaper about last Friday’s meeting and the requirements of the law. We will continue to work with M.C.I.L. on meeting the requirements of the law although some of the information is not in line with our understanding and need clarification and testing.

Sunday Samoan: What is your vision for S.F.A? What are the challenges and what are some of your goals?

Afamasaga: Farmer organizations (F.O.s) have a special role in mobilizing smallholder farmers, especially in the Third World where smallholder farming provides food security, employment and means of economic support for the majority of people. Farmer organizations act as a link for farmers to policy makers, to markets, to input suppliers and to knowledge providers.

Governments recognize the role of farmer organizations and wishes to contribute to implementation of government plans in agriculture. S.F.A.‘s vision is to become a modern farmer organization with the capacity do all that and in the process help Samoa’s farmers increase their income from farming and to contribute substantially to Samoa’s development. S.F.A. has a Strategic Plan which sets out the strategies to achieve this. Implementation of that plan will be S.F.A.’s focus after we get past this.

The immediate challenge is clearly to restore the public image and name of SFA, after the negative publicity campaign waged by a handful of determined people with an agenda to destabilize the organization for their own reasons. It’s a campaign that’s been pursued relentlessly in the print media, television and social media. Even S.F.A.’s own Facebook page has not escaped being misused without authorization, to carry out this undermining work. It’s now clear that the aim was to discredit S.F.A. with the public and with donors in particular so that the newly formed group gets to take over.

The other most pressing need is to pick up where we left of with a number of projects we have in the pipeline. These projects have significant benefits for farmers, for the economy and for S.F.A. itself s a farmer organization. Initiatives begun last year on papaya, pineapple and floriculture in partnership with Pacific and Asian farmer organizations need to be picked up and continued as soon as possible.

Strengthening the capacity of S.F.A. as a modern farmer organization with an enhanced ability to meet the requirements of the Incorporated Societies Act and most especially its 2012 amendments is also a priority. We need to work closely with MCIL to strengthen remaining areas of weakness in our systems.

We also need more clarity of what seems to be new and rather arbitrary practices in applying the provisions of the Act as shown in the report by MCIL in the paper earlier this week.

Sunday Samoan: Can you talk about the beginning of the present campaign to deregister the organization?

Afamasaga: I’d like to take up the offer of further elaboration to mention the genesis of what has become a relentless campaign to discredit SFA and members of the executive.

Leading up to the S.I.D.s conference last year, it was decided to invite a number of SFA members to give support for SFA participation in S.I.D.s and also help with preparations for the planned A.G.M. at end of year. The group selected included Malcolm Hazelman, Papali’i Panoa, Loau Keneti Sio, and a number of others who appear to have dropped out from the disaffected group.

A major disagreement soon surfaced however between these members and the executive committee members over implementation of SFA’s agreed activities funded under the Pacific Island Farmer Organization Network (P.I.F.O.N.). These activities included training and practical demonstration of commercial production of papaya and pineapple and floriculture to meet local demand and later on export markets. Expertise would come from commercial farmers engaged in Fiji’s export of papaya and pineapples.

To cut a long story short, the disaffected group members wanted to have them conduct the activities at a fee in place of the outside expertise agreed to with the donor, the Pacific Island Farmer Organization Network. That would have been fine except none of them had the required expertise and practical experience in commercial operations of this nature. They were therefore asked to leave the decision making to the executive and they can look for work for themselves elsewhere. That was the start of the present destabilizing publicity campaign with extensive use of the media including social media.

In response, the group asked for a special A.G.M. to discuss their grievances. When told the request did not meet the requirements for such an A.G.M and that the scheduled AGM would be in March, they sought intervention by M.C.I.L. and deregistration of SFA. When that failed, they sought a special meeting chaired by MC.I.L. to report on S.F.A.’s affairs with a view to changing the executive. That special meeting was held last Friday with members having their say about the running of the organization.

Sunday Samoan: Any other issues you wish to comment on?

Afamasaga: The allegations of corruption and lack of accountability on the part of the Chairman especially have been made with little regard to the facts or reputation. It’s the old tactic of spreading enough mud around so that in the end, some will stick.

There has been much misinformation and unsubstantiated allegations in the media.

“Farmers in disarray” screamed one newspaper headline in the weekend.

The numbers that turned out to the meeting last week do not suggest that. Nor did the outcome of the meeting. A handful of persons with an agenda of their own have managed to put the association and its affairs through a damaging public process.

The correctness and legality of parts of that process remain to be tested. But S.F.A. is in the process of sorting out its office procedures to meet the full requirements of the law so that this does not happen again. The organization has a new executive and a substantial work plan that needs attending to. That will be the focus and the main challenge from now on.