18 Nov 2010

FEMA says American Samoa abides with compliance requests

11:37 am on 18 November 2010

The US Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, says its oversight of grant aid to American Samoa is working well and that the territory continues to abide with compliance requests in place.

This comes after the Office of Inspector General recommended that FEMA consider designating the American Samoa government a high risk grantee because the local government had serious internal control and financial problems.

However, FEMA's Associate Administrator, David Garratt, says the report does not do justice to the history of aggressive actions and significant enhancement efforts undertaken by American Samoa and FEMA to deal with those concerns.

He says it also fails to recognise the measurable improvements in accountability those efforts have produced.