Former finance minister Mulipola Anarosa Ale-Molioo has come out firing on all cylinders and denying signing any deal with the three mysterious stock exchange companies. That is not being denied.

Mulipola said that she was in Hong Kong at the behest of the chairman of the Marriott/Sheraton hotel chain to attend a Trade Promotion Expo, a crucial event under the Samoa Digital Asset Economic Opportunities Zone (SDAEOEZ).

Mulipola fails to provide a satisfactory answer about what she was doing on stage with three Chinese companies, representing Samoa. The cabinet had not told her to do that. It means that she acted on her own without notifying the cabinet.

She was promoting Samoa for a type of business that has not yet been legislated and extremely dangerous to indulge in. Samoa was already blacklisted by the European Union for laxity in tax laws and we were going to further scrutinise ourselves by agreeing to this deal. As finance minister, she knew that very well but she acted contradictingly.

What is even more concerning is La’auli Leuatea Schmidt backing Mulipola’s explanation of trying to economically benefit the nation. This is coming from the former agriculture minister whose plan to increase exports was shipping cattle or beef to American Samoa because it would be bought in American dollars, forgetting the nation’s population is just 25 per cent of ours and the American import guidelines are too tough to satisfy. To date, we are yet to export Samoa beef to Pago Pago.

It is hard to imagine that Sheraton was one of the investors in the three stock exchange companies as claimed by Mulipola. It is also yet to be explained how Laauli’s children were named as directors of the Chinese companies. How has Mulipola failed to explain that?

At one point, the three firms altered their postal addresses and registered offices, citing the Fono Fa'avae Offices in Sasina, Savai'i - Gagaifomauga No.3, as their new address.

The exact nature of the business of these three companies remains a mystery. How would they have operated in Samoa?

What is known is that the directorships for these firms have transitioned to an individual with an address in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The Samoa Company Registry reveals that Kelven Wong assumed the role of director for the firms on 11 March 2024. The consent form for this directorship change was approved on 27 March 2024, as per the registry records.

The three foreign firms are the Samoa Stock Exchange, the Samoa Digital Asset Exchange, and the Oceania Special Economic Zone.

For the Oceania Special Economic Zone, the directorship position previously listed Isadora Schmidt as a Director but ceased on 11 March 2024.

As for Samoa Stock Exchange Limited, Tak Yam Lam was listed as the Director previously while Samoa Digital Asset Exchange Ltd listed Jia Ling Chen as the former director before the appointment of Mr Wong.

According to information on the company registry, the companies are financial insurance companies that include financial activities except insurance and pension funding.

When you look up what financial insurance is, it is a type of insurance policy that is frequently purchased by businesses. It provides coverage that protects them from losses due to a partner in a contract failing to meet their obligations. It can also protect against various other types of commercial financial losses.

So, if that is what these companies do, who are their customers and who are they protecting from losses?

The mystery deepens when a search is run on Kelven Wong, the new director for these companies. It leads to a Malaysian company called Touch’n’Go. The company in its profile on LinkedIn says they have been leading Malaysia’s digital transformation to a cashless society. That may be true but that is not what the deal was in the first place. It is something that Mulipola fails to explain clearly.

In June 2023, Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa announced that the government would not be endorsing the companies, she stated that they were taking a cautious approach concerning any proposals related to digital assets (also known as virtual assets or cryptocurrency) exchanges.

She stated that given the global experience of such exchanges being used in scams and money laundering, the government needed to be careful. This was one of the early red flags about this company.

We need a better explanation of why the former finance minister chose to represent Samoa on the stage with these three companies.