Cnmi open government act

In the CNMI, minority members with the House of Representatives submitted an Open Government Act request to the Office of Finance on the CNMI Gov. Ralph Torres' expenses. This comes after multiple receipts were made public presenting excessive spending. The OGA requested for an extension to Jan. 6, and the deadline has not been met.

On Dec. 10, the six minority members of the CNMI House of Representatives sent a unified statement requesting the Speaker of the House of Representatives BJ Attoa to appoint a special investigative committee.

"To look into the allegations of public corruption, fraud, waste and abuse of public funds and attach to that letter were a number of documents," Rep. Tina Sablan told KUAM News.

The documents include federal court records of the search warrant conducted on the CNMI governor, the FBI's receipt for property and also attached were receipts submitted to members of the legislature by a number of concerned citizens.

These were documents that were publicized following a release of sealed federal court documents.

Sablan tells KUAM that during the House session, a debate ensued and ultimately Speaker Attoa did not appoint a special investigative committee but rather referred the records submitted to his office to two committees for review the house committee on ways and means and the committee on judiciary and governmental operations. Sablan sits on the house committee on Ways and Means and says they have met and reviewed the initial set of records. Sablan also submitted additional records.

"That have come to light since the Dec. 10 that session and then I also submitted an open government act request that the minority members filed with the Department of Finance seeking all the records that have to do with the governors official representation, reimbursements, travel any first-class travel for any person that has been funded by the commonwealth government as well as housing utilities, allowances, all these different types of expenses that have come under scrutiny," she said. "We ask for all of that and we also ask for finance to provide records that detail the policies that govern whether or not tax payers should be paying for these."

This includes a nearly $30,000 first-class trip Gov. Torres and his wife First Lady Dianne Torres took in Dec. 2018, less than two months after Super Typhoon Yutu devastated the Island.

"This all came from the commonwealth government," Sablan said. "We did ask, part of our request, our open government act request with finance was also for a listing of all the government accounts that have been charged for all of these different expenses."

KUAM was on the island grounds and requested an interview with Gov. Torres, however, according to public information officer for the office of the governor Kevin Bautista, the governor was unavailable.

The Office of Finance requested an extension, and Sablan says members of the minority went to the office of finance to inspect the records they have gathered thus far.

"And there were stacks and stacks of records just pertaining to the governors travel and all of it from what we can see thus far has been first-class," Sablan said.

CNMI law is clear that first-class travel is not allowed to be paid for by the commonwealth government. And it's not just the house minority members speaking out. One CNMI senator, Paul Manglona says shortly after the FBI raids on the governor's office, his house and brothers law firm, there has been growing distrust and a discontent feeling amongst the public.

"With all of this combined with the super typhoon hardships, the hour austerity work schedule for the government, people screaming what is the legislature doing, what are we doing? And so this is tough on all of us, and so that's why in our last session, I supported the minority members call for an investigation," he said. "And I think in 2012 when the legislature impeached former Gov. Pedo (Benigno Fitial) they should also step in today with all this allegations of corruption, fraud and abuse of public funds."

The extension deadline for the open government act request was Jan. 6. According to Sablan, the office of finance has asked for another extension of 15 days, and told the minority members "they have been bombarded by multiple requests for a lot of the same records.

As Finances is manually searching through boxes of paper records to ultimately provide hard copies. The minority agreed and the deadline is set for Jan. 22.