
It appears that the American Samoa Government Employees Retirement Fund (ASGERF) has relinquished its ownership of the Hawaiki Cable and the ownership of the cable is now in the hands of the American Samoa government through the American Samoa Telecommunications Authority,.
The full amount that the Retirement fund had loaned to ASTCA and was held as the Fund’s investment in the Hawaiki Cable, $17.1 million plus ten percent for a total of $18.5 million has been repaid.
And the Indefeasible Right of Use agreement between the Retirement Fund and ASITCA is no more.

Iaulualo Faafetai Talia
The information was revealed by the Chairman of the Board of ASTCA Iulogologo Joseph Pereira and ASGERF Director Iaulualo Talia Faafetai at a hearing of the House Budget and Appropriations Committee this morning.
As listeners will recall, the Chairman of the ASGREF Board of Trustees, Vaanatiu Iafeta Tofala and Director Iaulualo had heretefore maintained strongly that the Hawaiki Cable is owned by the Retirement Fund.
And there were obvious disagreements between the Retirement Fund Board and ASTCA regarding this issue,
But that was then. Today it was a different story.
The chairman of the ASTCA Board Iulogologo and the ASGERF Director Iaulualo were in agreement that ASG owns the Hawaiki Cable, which is being operated by ASTCA.
When Rep. Vailoata Amituanai asked Iulogologo who owns the Hawaiki Cable, Iulogologo said the government. He said ASTCA is the government agency that is operating Hawaiki.
ASGERF Director Iaulualo told the hearing that the government had initially offered the Fund 25% of profits from the sale of Hawaiki bandwidth. However they rejected this and asked for 25 percent of gross sales.
Also the Fund insisted on receiving the 25% share of gross sales for the life span of the Hawaiki Cable which is 25 years.
An administration bill which defines and allocates revenues from the sale of Hawaiki bandwidth authorizes exactly what the Retirement Fund wanted.
According to the bill, 25% of the Hawaiki bandwidth sales is assigned to the Retirement Fund , 50% goes to ASTCA and 25% shall be placed in an earmarked account to pay the American Samoa Economic Development Authority’s 2018 bond debt related to financing of the Hawaikiki cable and the IRU.
There were no questions asked about how ASTCA was able to fully repay the Retirement Fund loan but it does appear that ASEDA bond sale was the funding source. This means the public is paying the ASTCA loan through the taxes and increases in fees and charges which the Fono approved to repay the bond debt.

Iulogolgoo Joseph Pereira
The bill also states that the Hawaiki Indefeasible Right of Use shall be reported as an asset of ASTCA. And ASTCA shall operate Hawaiki and sell its bandwidth. ASTCA shall also create a separate Hawaiki accounting entity to account for Hawaiki expenses and revenues.
According to the ASTA Board Chairman Iulogologo, ASTCA is trying to sell 50 gigabytes of bandwidth to French Polynesia and it is working jointly with Hawaiki on a bid. He said the bidding competition is tough because other cables are also submitting bids. There’s Fiji’s Southern Cross Cable, Samoa’s Tui Samoa Cable and French Polynesia is also launching the Manatua Cable.
Iulogologo declined to even attempt an estimate of the money to be made from this sale but said that in an effort to make our bid competitive we will probably offer the lowest cost to French Polynesia.