Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The “American Samoa Island Report”, prepared by staff of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, shows that the ASG Procurement Office has awarded the contract to build four “Super Alia” or “Alia Tele” for this project to a Washington state-based company.

In May this year, the Procurement Office issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the “Purchase of Four Fishing Vessels Constructed to Technical Specifications”. The closing date was June 7th.

The US Economic Development Administration (EDA) in December of last year, awarded $4.4 million for the project, which ASG has touted over the previous three years as the “future commercial fishing vessel” that can go further out at sea and stay out longer fishing than the current traditional alias.

According to the “American Samoa Island Report”, submitted to this week’s 189th Meeting of the Council, the ASG Chief Procurement Officer awarded on Nov. 24th this year, the contract to build four “Super Alia” fishing vessels to Armstrong Consolidated Inc., based in Port Townsend, Washington.

The project is overseen by the ASG Commerce Department (DOC) and the report quotes a DOC spokesman saying that the Notice to Proceed is expected soon.

Samoa News received information several days ago that the contract been awarded to Armstrong Consolidated.

Chief Procurement Officer, Tialemasunu Dr. Mikaele Etuale didn’t immediately respond to Samoa News email questions sent last Thursday for confirmation on the contractor and other information.

The Council report states that the first complete turn-key vessel is expected to arrive in Pago Pago in April 2022. The remaining 3 ‘Super Alia’ will follow, fully completed with multi-purpose commercial fishing gear on-board. It also says that the cost of the government assets $3.04 million.

There has been a lot of interest in the development of this project since EDA funding was announced and it has also been an issue raised by lawmakers since early this year.

As previously reported by Samoa News, the design for the “Super Alia” was completed more than two years ago, thanks to funding from the US Department of Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs, and ASG and DOC continued to look at all federal resources to fund construction.

ASG officials had said in 2016 that Armstrong Consolidated designed the super alia and it’s the same company that designed and built the ASG ferry-boat Segaula.

ASG-DOC announced last December that the EDA grant would fund the purchase of a small fleet of four modern and upgraded traditional-stylized commercial fishing vessels that will support the growth of the local fishing fleet.

One vessel will function as a training platform while the other three vessels will function as business incubators.