Samoa has about SAT$3 billion worth of projects in the pipeline, a conference organised for Government entities heard on Thursday.

This monetary value represents close to 300 major capital works projects which will take a decade or two to start depending on financing and investment.

Government entities from across all sectors gathered under one roof to discuss and formulate strategic plans to manage development projects as well as identify and prioritize the more important developments in what is called the upstream approach.

The Project Lead, Infrastructure Consultant for the Samoa Public Sector Investment Program (PSIP), Glenn Fawcett helped to present the early-stage project screening.

This presentation was to familiarise participants with the Ministry of Finance, in terms of their approach to prioritizing investments.

“Today is about bringing all the Ministries together to identify what the future investments are for Samoa and we want to be able to publish that list of investments so that people have a good understanding of where the priorities are for funding investments across all of the sectors in Samoa whether it is health, new bridges and new buildings, ” Mr. Fawcet said.

“We are bringing all of that together into the public sector investment plans and then we are publishing that. It’s about the transparency of what is spent, about having a much longer-term view of where the priorities are, and also making sure that those investments are aligned with the strategic priorities that are set in the pathway of the development of Samoa.”

This was one of the few times, all Government Ministries had gathered together in the same room. The Policy Planning Division within MOF is the central unit that is able to compile and bring together the information before all the workshop participants.

According to Mr. Fawcett, they have managed to browse over 300 projects of which 200 are still in the pipeline, planned, and not yet funded.

There are a lot of projects that need to be prioritized which is part of the objective of the workshop and project. There are over 20 agencies with capital investment funds to spend on projects and the project allows for a central view of all expenditures which is very important for Samoa moving forward.

“This is the early stage screening, this is the work we do upstream of getting funding which is the appraisal phase of the project making sure that it still has economic return, is still feasible, and that everything is in place for that project to be constructed,” he said

“This is early stage screening, identification, then you go through appraisal, you budget the project and then you deliver the project.”

This is the second publication of the PSIP which is a document that will eventually be published every year so that all ongoing projects or projects yet to be done are in a document every year.

“We know at the moment there’s $1.4 billion in planned projects; the total of investments planned and hoped to achieve is $3 billion. That is the total pipeline cost for 10-plus years,” Mr. Fawcett added.

In terms of planned projects, roads are where the biggest chunk is likely to go, followed by energy and public administration. Agriculture, aviation, maritime, and water are next on the list.