The company, which designed the Talofa Pass platform, may face a contempt citation if it doesn’t furnish information that the Senate Select Investigative Committee has requested.
This is according to Committee Chairman Senator Togiola Tulafono.
He said, yesterday, if the company DataHouse Consulting Inc. doesn’t provide the information that the Committee has asked for—and the company said it will provide—it will be served with a contempt of Senate citation.
In February, the Committee voted to give DataHouse Inc. 30-days to comply with a subpoena to provide the requested documents to or their CEO will be held in committee.
The documents being subpoenaed relate to the selection of DataHouse to design and operate the TalofaPass platform.
A resolution that the Senate passed in January said DataHouse has not complied completely with the SSIC subpoena. The resolution said company CEO, Ms. Hong Phan had agreed to provide all the documents included in the subpoena, however, the documents provided to the committee are incomplete.
In other news, the SSIC yesterday voted to recall Treasurer Malemo Tausaga and the Chief financial Officer of the LBJ Hospital Sefanaia Kaumaitotoya to be questioned again about the $4.4 million that was transferred to the Wells Fargo Bank.
Togiola pointed out that the hospital has reported that all of the money has been paid back to LBJ, but the Treasurer has stated that $100,000 has not been returned by Wells Fargo.
Togiola then said the committee needs to know which of these testimonies is the truth. And if the hospital is right, that all of the money has been repaid, the question that needs to be answered is where did Treasury get the money to pay it.
The Committee had also asked for the original document that initiated the transfer.
Senate President Tuaolo Manaia Fruean said they also need to find out the name of the Wells Fargo account the money was transferred to.
Senator Satele Lilio suggested they also call in the CEO of the Territorial Bank of American Samoa who can verify if the funds were indeed returned by Wells Fargo Bank.
