The Attorney General’s Office has given Nauru official Rubin Tsitsi 14 days to depart the Marshall Islands. But Tsitsi appealed earlier last week to the High Court for it to block the deportation order.
Tsitsi has managed Nauru Holding Company’s Majuro property for 17 years, overseeing rentals at the former Eastern Gateway Hotel site next to the government’s capital building and a block of apartments in a rural section of the capital atoll.
The government’s deportation notice, issued in early November, said that Tsitsi’s entry permit expired in 2006 and he must leave the country immediately.
But Tsitsi has four children with Marshall Islander Marylou Tarbwillin, who submitted a statement to the court appealing for its help to prevent deportation of her husband, who is a citizen of Nauru.
Tsitsi has been in Majuro since 1993. In September, President Jurelang Zedkaia, as traditional chief for the former hotel property that is now used to house retail stores, taxi and auto repair shops, and apartments, filed suit against Nauru for alleged breach of its lease with the demand that Nauru pay $600,000 to landowners. The figure is based on the annual rental of about $20,000 for the next 30 years of the lease that Zedkaia claims has been broken by Nauru.
Zedkaia has asked the court to eject Tsitsi from the property.
Tsitsi contends the reason for lack of recent land payments is because landowners sub-leased some of the property originally under lease to Nauru, and no action has yet been taken to determine how much this reduces the amount owed to landowners by Nauru for land it no longer has access to.
