The thought that this natural disaster could have also been a man-made tragedy is angering those who lost family in the tsunami. While others say the American Samoa government did nothing wrong.
34-people died in the aftermath of the earth-quake generated tsunami that slammed into American Samoa. There were no sirens and no warning system before the first wave hit. Now the question is, could lives have been saved if sirens had been blaring.
"It angers me without a doubt because I lost relatives in the tsunami," says Tenari Maafala, Samoan community leader.
Allegations have surfaced that monies from a 13-million dollar US disaster grant to build the sirens and warning system were instead misused. Spent on plasma TV's, leather furniture and government SUV's...not used for emergencies.
"It's their responsibility to use the money for what it's there for, and that's to build a tsunami warning system, to save lives," sys Maafala.
He is heading up a relief drive for American Samoa.
"This doesn't help people trying to put on fundraising events now the question becomes where is this money gonna go," said Maafala.
However, a former American Samoa legislator says his government is not corrupt and allegations they misused funds are false.
"I'm upset, upset because it creates a bad image for our people," said Gus Hannemann. "Hey people do things differently, we Samoans that's the way we do things, we want our office built first before we build a building outside, what's wrong with that?"
Obviously, The US government thought something was wrong.
"And what did they do, they froze the money and sat on it and what happened tsunami came and now they're doing an investigation," said Hannemann. "So whose fault, you're gonna blame my government for it, of course not."
"From what I understand the FBI is heading this investigation and i'm sure they'll get to the bottom of it whether guilty or not improprieties or not they'll find out," said Maafala.
Federal negotiators want the American Samoa government to pay back misused funds before unfreezing the money, but so far that has not happened.
