Funding to enable the national airline Samoa Airways to settle its outstanding debts might have to come from the budget of the next financial year, a senior Cabinet Minister has revealed.

The Minister for Public Enterprises, Leatinu'u Wayne So'oialo when asked if the Government will provide more budgetary support to enable the airline to settle its debts, said they will have to look at the 2024/2025 Budget for more funding as he is not sure about current funding in this year's budget.

"We'll have a look at it when we work on next year's budget," he said."I don't know about the supplementary if there's another allocation fund or not.

"But they [Samoa Airways] are pushing to use that SAT$4 million from the budget to pay for other things in their line of work and the money they're collecting from domestic flights to American Samoa."

The airline's interim C.E.O. Fauoo Fatu Tiel, in a previous interview with the Samoa Observer, said the airline will need to ask the Government again for more budgetary support to boost the airline's operations as well as assist pay off its debts.

Asked about how the airline is coping with its debts, Leatinuu said the company is still paying off its outstanding arrears. 

"We're still paying," he said. "I liaise, myself as the Minister, between the Cabinet and Samoa Airways."

Samoa Airways' SAT$50 million-plus debt owed to the Unit Trust of Samoa (U.T.O.S.) will be taken over by the Government which will then organise to pay it off. 

The Cabinet in May this year approved a directive that gave instructions for the U.T.O.S. debt of over $50 million to be passed on to the Government as the loan guarantor. The instructions from the Cabinet mean the State-owned airline will now be left with about $25 million in outstanding arrears to settle from a total debt of $85 million recorded earlier this year. 

Fauo'o confirmed this in a previous interview saying that the total debt which the airline now owes to U.T.O.S. is more than $50 million. 

"It was a reasonable decision and the Government was called up as a guarantor for that loan (from U.T.O.S.) in May this year to pay for the loan," Fauo'o said at that time. "It was 54 point something million, not $50 million and we're grateful to the Government for stepping up and assisting with the airline's debts.

"As without the Government's assistance, the airline wouldn't be able to clear these debts around this time. That leaves the airline about $25 million left of its debts to pay."

Despite the intervention by the Cabinet, which now reduces the airline's debts to around $25 million, Fauo'o said the airline might have to ask the Government again for another cash injection, this time with a grant allocation as Samoa Airways has its own debts since the declaration of its bankruptcy.

"We also have our own operations we need to pay for as well as other debts of the airline itself aside from those debts so we might have to ask the Government again for another grant as we need it that much," he said.

Asked about an estimated timeframe for the airline to finish paying off all its debts, Fauo'o said it depends on the operations of the airline as they also have other expenses to pay such as the salaries of workers. 

However, he remains optimistic about the airline's recovery, following the Cabinet's decision to get the Government to take over the airline's $50 million debt to the U.T.O.S. as they were in discussions before May this year on how to retire it when the Cabinet intervened.