The Territorial Bank of American Samoa (TBAS) intends to extend its existing branch in Tafuna and no longer has any interest in the former ANZ building in Tafuna.
This was revealed in the Senate Tuesday by Senator Togiola Tulafono, chairman of the TBAS Board of Directors.
He reported that when ANZ left the former administration planned to lease the building to TBAS. However, the board did not agree to a lease as at the time the bank was struggling financially and was seeking assistance from the government as the Federal Reserve was raising issue with the bank’s capitalization.
The TBAS Board requested instead that the building be given to TBAS and it would be an asset of the bank.
Togiola said former Governor Lemanu approved the request however, when the change in administration took place, the legal transfer of the building to TBAS had not been made.
According to Togiola, Governor Pulaalii Nikolao Pula did not accept a request by the TBAS Board that the building be transferred to TBAS, as was agreed to by former Governor Lemanu.
Rather, the current governor wanted the bank to lease the building and the land. This was not accepted by the TBAS Board.
When ASG started looking for locations for offices in the EOB to move to, the TBAS board was informed that the building would be given to the Department of Commerce, which would be responsible for cleaning up the grounds and repairing the building. He said any statement that the building was given to TBAS is false.
Togiola said the state of disrepair of the building which the Lt. Governor described is not the fault of TBAS. “It’s the fault of the Governor’s Office,” he said.
He said the board has decided to extend the existing branch at Tafuna and it no longer has any interest in the former ANZ Bank building. He also pointed out that the building is in a tsunami zone.
However, according to FEMA’s American Samoa Potential Tsunami Inundation Zones Map, the bank location is not in any of the inundation zones.
