In an interview on Friday, Tenorio, Covenant-Saipan, said he understands that with the financial crisis the CNMI government is facing now, it’s not the right time for the administration to look at something that may result in loss of funds.
But, he added, there is a need to correct a mistake before everyone suffers its negative consequences.
Tenorio earlier disclosed that for many years now, the CNMI government has been improperly using the interest MPLT earned from investing the proceeds of public land leases.
Tenorio said when he realized this oversight, he was no longer the governor.
He tried to bring it up with his successor, “but what could I do when I was no longer in power that time?”
Tenorio was governor from Jan. 1994 to Jan. 1998.
Public land earnings are supposed to be used only for people of Northern Marianas Descent or NMDs, he said.
Article 9, Section 6 (d) of the CNMI Constitution allows the MPLT trustees to use the interest from the amount received for the lease of property at Tanapag Harbor for the development and maintenance of a memorial park and to “transfer to the general revenues the remaining interest accrued on the trust proceeds except that the trustees may retain the amount necessary to meet reasonable expenses of administration.”
This provision, Tenorio said, has been mistakenly applied to the interest accrued from the proceeds of other public land leases.
With regards to the Tanapag Harbor being leased by the National Park Service, Tenorio said he wants to know why the federal government would tell the CNMI government what to do with the interest from the land the U.S. is leasing.
“It’s just takes common sense after reading the NMI Constitution for one to realize that something not right has been going on,” Tenorio said.
