What this is
Folafolaga tracks FAST in government: every promise it made for the 29 August 2025 election, what has happened to each since the Laʻauli government took office on 16 September 2025, and its record from 2021 to 2025 under Fiamē. It also records the public projects of the last three governments and how Samoa is doing on the big topics behind the promises, so a reader can see what each promise has meant for families.
HRPP has not governed since May 2021, so its 2025 pledges are not shown; they stay in the published data files for anyone who wants them.
It is written from the side of ordinary families: workers, low-income and rural households, women, children, older people and people with disabilities. It does not tell anyone how to vote.
Where the facts come from
The research was gathered with Perplexity's search and saved with every source it returned. Every claim on the site is tied to a source, shown as a numbered link beside the sentence it supports. The sources were then checked against the original documents and every link was tested. No web address is written from memory.
Figures come first from official documents: budget addresses, the Samoa Bureau of Statistics, the Central Bank, ministry reports and Acts of Parliament; then from the IMF, World Bank and ADB; then from Samoan and Pacific news reporting. Where sources disagree, both figures are given and the disagreement is noted. A government claim is marked as a claim, and an allegation as an allegation, until something independent confirms it.
The site is reviewed regularly; mistakes are fixed and the fix is noted, with the date it was last checked shown on every page.
How a promise is marked
Kept: delivered as promised, with a law in force and money paid, or a service running.
Under way: partly delivered, funded and rolling out, or phased to a later date. Money or action has to be aimed at that promise; spending on something related, under another name or for another purpose, does not count.
No sign yet: no action, or only reviews, consultations or announcements.
Broken: reversed, dropped, or contradicted by what government did.
Record items from the 2021 to 2025 term are marked kept, not kept, or neither where there was no matching promise or no term-end measure.
Projects are marked Delivered and working, On track, Delivered with problems, Delayed, Abandoned or No visible progress, with notes on how each was planned, costed and procured, whether it works, and what was published about it.
Each promise also carries its yearly cost against the budget, whether Samoa can pay for and deliver it, its likely effect over five to ten years, who gains, who pays, and a reading of what it does for families: good, cuts both ways, costs aiga, or does not reach them.
How the verdict is reached
Who gains and who pays. Each promise is weighed from the side of ordinary families, workers, low-income and rural households, women, children, older people and people with disabilities, against high earners, big business, foreign investors and the politically connected. Relief that mostly reaches the better-off cuts both ways at best.
Whether it can be paid for. A promise that cannot be funded at the promised scale, or is paid for by cutting services or by debt the next generation carries, is not good for families, however it sounds. Costs are set against the budget's receipts and deficit, and what the IMF, World Bank, ADB, Central Bank and Audit Office have said is recorded.
The long-term effect. Each promise is judged over five to ten years: on the budget and debt, prices, jobs and wages, incentives to work, save and invest, dependence on aid and remittances, services and the environment. Progressive tax is read as good; cuts to top rates or company tax while services go unfunded are read as a cost to families.
Whether public services stay public. Health, schooling, water and power are judged as public services. Handing them, or public land, to private operators is a cost unless families clearly gain.
Accountability of those in power. The site watches for money, services and power being concentrated rather than spread: district money flowing through party-appointed chairs, cronyism in contracts and appointments, politicians treated as above the law, and pressure on the courts, the central bank, the auditor and the press.
The same criteria apply to FAST's 2025 promises under Laʻauli and to its 2021 to 2025 record under Fiamē. Facts stay facts, including the ones that cut against the judgement.
Who deserves the credit
A result is not proof that the government of the day caused it. Every promise that is kept, under way, broken or adopted says where the result really came from.
This government's decision: a new law, budget line or scheme decided since 16 September 2025.
Started by an earlier government: begun or funded by Fiamē's FAST government or by HRPP and carried on, such as a wage path set in 2024 or a grant that already existed.
Routine work by ministries: the ordinary work of ministries, state bodies or courts that would have happened under any government.
Paid for by aid partners: driven or financed by Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, the ADB or the World Bank.
Outside forces: world fuel and food prices, tourism's recovery after COVID, migration and remittances, weather and disease.
Shared credit: more than one of these in real measure; the note says which. Where a government claims credit for something it inherited, the note says so plainly.
What this site does not do
It runs no polls of its own and reports only surveys that are published and representative.
It makes no claim without a source, and where a figure is missing it says so rather than estimate it. Where the site's own arithmetic is used on published figures, it is labelled as such.
It does not endorse a party or a candidate, and it does not call itself neutral: it judges every promise by the criteria above and shows its working.
What the labels mean
Was the promise kept?
Verdict for families
Can it be done?
Long term
Who deserves the credit
Projects
The patterns
The bands, dividers and the footer panel are original drawings inspired by the composition of siapo, Samoan barkcloth: rectangular panels divided by dark lines, repeated squares, modest borders, and the dyes of the cloth (bark tan, ʻoʻa brown, lama near-black and ʻele red-brown). The simple motifs they use are documented siapo elements: faʻaʻaliʻao (triangles forming diamonds), faʻaʻauʻupega (net lines), vae tuli (repeated footprint marks), tusiliʻi (fine straight or wavy lines) and the edge of a lau ulu leaf.
They are not tatau. Nothing on the site reproduces a peʻa or malu, their panels or the marks that belong to them; those are personal and the tufuga decides them. The drawings are not copies of any maker's siapo either. They are decoration, subordinate to the promises, dates and evidence, and they do not certify any party's cultural standing.
A commissioned design by a Samoan siapo maker, with agreed attribution and use, would be the better long-term choice.