Aana Alofi No. 3 Member of Parliament, Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster, has penned an open appeal to the Minister and the Board of the Samoa Shipping Corporation (S.S.C) for help.The open letter sent to the Samoa Obsever concerns the cost of shipping cargo to American Samoa, which the Member of Parliament describes as “daylight robbery.”The letter from the Member of Parliament, who belongs to the Tautua Samoa Party, is published here in full. It reads:Appeal to the Minister and Board of Samoa Shipping CorporationI write this special appeal to the above-mentioned people in the hope that they, being in positions of authority, can make the necessary changes and adjustments to the daylight robbery that is happening with the cost of shipping cargo to American Samoa.First amongst this is the charging of 50c per pound for cargo going on the boat.From what I saw, several of the farmers shipping their taro, and other exports to be sold in American Samoa are paying more per pound than the cost of shipping a container from New Zealand or the United States of America.A case in point is that a person sending over 5,000lbs will pay ST$2,500. This weight usually only covers less than a quarter of a 20ft container shipped from even American Samoa but has the same cost if not cheaper.Secondly, is the S.S.C charging the weight of pallets for which cargo is placed onto the customer when the requirement is actually that of S.S.C. A person using 10 pallets which weigh approximately 64lbs will pay around an extra $400 on weight that is not of their own but that of S.S.C.Thirdly is after having charged over $30 for the weight of the pallet, S.S.C again charges another $5 for the fare of the pallet to be on the boat.From the S.S.C staff at Matautu, if you use less than 3 pallets, you don’t pay the extra $5, but if you use 4 or more, you will pay for all the pallets including the previously free ones.From discussions with some of the regular people shipping cargo to American Samoa, this is a standard practice that they have had to deal with for so long.