By Gemma Q. Casas
Variety News Staff

THE cash-strapped government early this year hired a Washington-based lobbyist which the administration calls its “Covenant consultant.”
Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Villagomez said the “Covenant consultant…is representing us.”
He refused to identify the consultant, saying, “just ask (Press Secretary) Charles R. (Reyes Jr.).”
Reyes said he was still in the process of getting the information from Finance Secretary Eloy Inos who was on the U.S. mainland.
House Minority Leader Arnold I. Palacios, R-Saipan, identified the consultant as “National Group.”
He said the House minority bloc has made an Open Government Act request to find out how much the administration is paying its “consultant” to block legislation to extend federal immigration law to the islands.
According to the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization involved in investigative journalism, National Group was previously hired by the CNMI government for $80,000 to lobby on certain insular issues.
National Group’s clients are mostly educational institutions such as Texas Tech University, Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Delaware.
Palacios said they are against the hiring of another lobby firm.
“I don’t think we should be getting a lobby firm. We should send our own people instead to articulate our position (in Washington, D.C.),” he told Variety in a phone interview.
The CNMI is a former client of the now disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
“We should have learned our lesson from the Jack Abramoff case. We need a congressional delegate not a lobbyist. That’s what the CNMI government should work for,” said Palacios.