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Fono’s new legal counsel is former CEO of Samoa Airways

Tupuivao Seiuli Alvin Tuala
Joyetter@samoanews.com

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The newest Legal Counsel for the Legislature is former CEO of the Samoa Government-owned Samoa Airways, Tupuivao Seiuli Alvin Tuala.

His move to American Samoa follows serving the airline industry in Samoa for three consecutive terms amounting to nine years.

He is assisting Mitzie Jessop Taase and Nathaniel Savali who have each been working for the Legislature for a number of years.

Tupuivao Seiuli’s career in Samoa came to an end when the FAST Administration took office in Samoa under its first female Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa.

He started working at the Legislature in November 2022.

At that time Samoa’s then-Minister of Public Enterprises Lautafi Selafi Purcell said Tupuivao’s leadership brought to life the government’s vision of re-establishing its own airline and changing its name from Polynesian Airlines to Samoa Airways. 

During its first year — 2018 — the national carrier expanded sales and travel agency reach, with its availability in the Sabre global distribution system. 

As the largest Global Distribution System provider for flight bookings in North America, Sabre is also the preferred travel commerce platform for many meta search engines, online travel agencies, tour companies, travel agencies, travel consolidators and travel management companies around the globe.

During its first year in operation Samoa Airways was highlighted for bringing in the highest number of passengers into the country for the month of November 2018, according to recently released data from the Samoa Bureau of Statistics.

When the FAST administration took office in 2021 an independent legal review was conducted and revealed that Samoa Airways allegedly “breached the solvency requirements of the Companies Act 2001, which attract both civil and criminal sanctions.”

Radio Polynesia reported the legal review also found that Samoa Airways accumulated debt of up to $80 million.

This placed the Airline in a highly distressed financial position. Repeated efforts by Radio Polynesia to reach out to Seiuli for comments at the time were unsuccessful.

The legal opinion says the Samoa Airways Board of Directors approved the lease and it would also appeared to be individually breaching statutory directors’ duties under the same Act by failing to properly inform the shareholder of its financial position and continuing to trade whilst insolvent.

This led the Cabinet to cancel the Samoa Airway’s lease of the Generation Boeing 737-800 aircraft.

The 14-page legal review, says the source of the ‘distress’ can be identified from the figures in a ‘Paper for Cabinet’ signed by the former Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Dr. Sailele Malielegaoi, where the extent of the financial losses were revealed when Samoa Airways took over the jet operations from the joint venture with Virgin Australia.

According to Cabinet papers, the accumulated losses of Samoa Airways as of January 2021 were SAT$77 million of which SAT$68 million are the accumulated Jet losses from November 2017 to January 2021.

Furthermore, the outstanding loans from United Trust of Samoa, amount to $45 million tala and has current liabilities and negative net assets of $22.45 million.

Not long after at the conclusion of Tupuivao’s tenure, the Samoa Cabinet hired an interim CEO and terminated contracts for all the airline’s board members.