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Samoa-Fono building is being demolished

Samoa (The Samoa News, May 11, 2017) - In this photograph of Samoa News taken last night, the Senate House is empty, with the furnishings, complete with the seats that people are sitting on in the balcony. As the two-storey legislative headquarters was demolished, the wall was dismantled, creating space for a new construction that is still in the pipeline.

The Senate was told to move their office from the Fono site to their homes because the piano (closest to the Tedi Samoa building) in which the Senators' office is located would also be torn down. Situated nearest to the Isle of Fono, the piano that accommodates the Faipules' office is not torn down and remains on the Fono site.

If the Fono will return for the second ordinary session in July, the Senate will use the Samoan Guest Fale or Fale Samoa on the Fono site for day-to-day meetings and board meetings, while the House will use the northern part of the Rex Lee government auditorium for its ordinary meetings and board meetings.

During the transitional phase, the Governor's Office assisted the Fono chiefs in their search for alternate legislative and employee bureaux. In all, $1.5 million in proceeds from the sale of the American Samoa Economic Development Authority bond was provided for the new Fono property, but there is still no information as to who the developer is for the new property or whether a tender has been placed.

The Fono's zoning permission has already been granted to destroy the present structures; and according to the house spokesman, Savali Talavou Ale, there is no fixed date at this time when the present structures will be dismantled. Meanwhile, there have been several grievances from the general population and Fono staff that many photographs of former known legislators exhibited in the central hall of the edifice were taken last months by strangers, shortly after the first regular meeting or sometime after.