The American Samoa governor Togiola Tulafono has confirmed that the government is faced with a serious problem of cigarettes being smuggled into the territory to avoid high excise tax.
This comes amid government plans to hike the excise tax on beer, alcohol and tobacco to fund a 10 million US dollar appropriation bill for the LBJ Medical Center.
The governor has acknowledged that cigarettes are already being smuggled into the territory to avoid the tax.
Togiola says the government is working on addressing the problem, but didn't specify how he plans to stop cigarette smuggling.
