Dear Editor,

We all enjoy a good laugh when we see the touring Samoan Dancing and Singing Politicians in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States again, and again and again since 2021, dressed as the Tongan national rugby team.

Humour is the Pacific way of handling awkward and embarrassing situations!

But behind the laughs is a dangerous threat.

Our government leaders are talking over the heads of our local people and communities, directly to overseas audiences about what they think are our problems.

The local Samoans have become invisible.

Our people experience daily struggles with poverty, drug epidemic, electricity shutdowns, increasing violent crime, and sky-high cost of living which are not being discussed with the locals who are living in this reality.

It is as if 200,000 Samoans in Samoa do not exist.

The discussions held in fancy banquet halls overseas do not focus on solving the real struggles in Apia, our villages and communities.

Instead, everyone else is blamed for our struggles that have worsened over these last four years. Even targeting our local people as a cause of these problems.

Our locals are seen as incompetent and backward. They have demoralised and politicised the civil service.

They continue to undermine our traditional village and community leadership through their proposed constitutional amendments.

National development is sacrificed for narrowly focused village projects resulting in deteriorating electricity and hospital services, poor roads and the list goes on and on.

We must engage the diaspora in constructive discussions on the development of our nation, building on the common values and history that bind us together as one people.

It is the government’s responsibility to protect its people, not criticise or divide them.

As the focus and priority are now firmly set overseas, the local Samoans have simply disappeared and ignored.

Out of sight, out of mind.

The trust between the people of Samoa and its government is broken.

Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi

Leader of HRPP