Samoan poverty “relative”

A well-known local medical figure has described Samoa as having “relative poverty”.

Professor Dr. Satupaitea Viali told the Samoa Observer the issue was complicated.

“If we compare our country with Ethiopia and other countries then we are definitely not [in poverty],” he said.

“It’s poverty by choice - in other words, there’s accessible amounts of food in the country that people do not access.

“For example, people living in town, they have lots of land in Nuu that they don’t use. If you go outside of town the breadfruits are dropping, the pawpaws are dropping because people don’t use it.

“I have seen it in pockets of our country; people choose to live a poor life because they want other things.” Dr. Viali said people defined poverty differently. Money was the problem in Samoa, he said.

“It’s the amount of money to do what you want, to educate the children.

“Money is not readily available because jobs…are not readily available, because the country is small and to educate the kids people need a lot of money.

“We put them through school even though the schools are free, they need money for the P.T.A, school committee and that’s a lot, but if you define poverty as availability of food then there’s a lot of food available in Samoa.”

He said there was relative poverty in Samoa, compared to New Zealand and other rich countries.

“I know what people are trying to do because if we define [poverty] in modern terms of rich countries like Milestone race day New Zealand then of course we can’t compare,” he said.

“There is relative poverty compared to those countries, but if you talk about the availability of food then that’s different. “So the answer is complicated but the answer the U.N. is looking for is its definition according to the status of the person.

“Your status defines what you owe, what your job is, but that’s not the same definition with the person who’s doing a plantation or not doing a plantation in the villages.

“I go out to the villages doing clinics and people are playing rugby and here I am thinking that these people who have back aches were [injured by] lifting heavy things from their plantation, only to find out that they don’t have plantations but they play rugby. “These are the same people that migrate to town and cry out to government: ‘where’s the money’.

“There’s relative poverty and the key is relative.”

Asked if relative poverty in Samoa was bad compared to developed countries, he said all countries had poor people.

“In any country without the poor, the country cannot function…we need poverty to keep the continent of the country set,” he said.

“Everyone cannot be rich, so we need the poor in society to continue to drive social policy of our country, we need that.

“When there is no poverty we suffer because that part of us that requires giving to the poor is missing. “Giving and feeding the poor is absolutely necessary for our psyche.”

He felt there was a growing dependence in the country on gifted money. “Remittance is great, the unfortunate part about it is it develops a culture of dependency,” he said.

“When we develop a culture of dependency then that is the tragedy and yes, we do have a culture of dependency.

“The remittance is not the problem…the dependency is the problem. “There are specific things that money is required for, for example funerals, but lots of other money is for living and they can make money here through plantations or selling products to get money rather than depending on overseas.”

Dr. Viali thought it could be difficult to interpret the intentions of foreign agencies like AUSAID and NZAID.

“Previously the donors helped a lot because our country wasn’t as developed like now and I think the challenge is to channel the donor aid into something more sustainable.

“It’s very difficult at times to interpret the donor’s intention because sometimes the donors also give but they want to employ their own people to disperse the money.

“That’s difficult because if they use our people then the skills are left here.”