The chairman of the Board of the Development Bank of American Samoa, Senator Nuanuaolefeagaiga Saoluaga Nua, has been unavailable to answer questions about revelations on social media that DBAS has frozen interest on the loans of members of the DBAS board as well as some employees and their relatives.
Two officials closely associated with DBAS, who spoke to KHJ News only on condition that they not be named, have confirmed that freezing the interest on loans has been continued from the previous DBAS board and has escalated under the current board.
According to the officials, when it first started the idea was to help loans which were in default, catch up with payments and the freeze was supposed to be temporary.
However what happened in reality is that no loan that was given this special treatment ever had their interest reinstated.
The sources said top bank officials at the time had advised against this practice and suggested refinancing instead but the bank board did not heed the advice.
The officials told KHJ News the practice has continued under the new board and members with bad loans, some with multi loans all at one time have not had to pay any interest in about a decade.
In addition, there are ASG officials and relatives of board members and employees who are granted loans in a few days, and in one case, all the paperwork was processed by bank staff without the applicant coming into the bank.
Calls to the chairman of the DBAS board chairman over the span of three days have gone unanswered or met with a reply that he will call back as he is attending a faalavelave.
