Flea market

Prime Minister, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa told a media conference this week that Cabinet decided to return the market to a more convenient place for public transportation.

“The new administration thinks (decided) that the old location in Savalalo is more convenient for the people and it’s a much easier location for transportation of buses and vehicles,” she said.

“Hence, we’ve decided to move it back to its old location and we’ve already commenced working on making this happen.”

The funds will go towards the rehabilitation of vendors who lost their businesses in a fire at the flea market more than a month ago.

Today, 50 of those stall owners were handed $400 tala each in cash from a local insurance company.

"Flea market operators have been here since 1989, when the Savalalo market was officially allocated for them after the construction of the market at Fugalei," Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said during the launch.

The Savalalo market, which has been a strong contributor to Samoa's tourism industry, was engulfed in flames on January the 18th.

The Samoa Hotel Association, alongside the accounting firm Betham & Company, says the fundraising effort will run for a month, and the money collected will be distributed out to vendor victims of the fire.

The fundraising appeal is in response to the plight of stall holders and small market vendors whose livelihoods were destroyed when the ‘Savalalo Market’ in Apia, Samoa was completely burned to the ground on Saturday evening 16th January 2016.

Around 300 small business operators who operated at the Savalalo Market are believed to be seeking help after the fire on Saturday destroyed their businesses.

The blaze started around 6pm on Saturday night, at the Savalalo market near the centre of Apia.

Our correspondent, Autagavaia Tipi Autagavaia, says a portable gas stove is suspected to have caused the blaze.

He says he spoke to an eyewitness, one of the market's security guards, who saw smoke rising from one of the stalls.