Ada, who is the ARRA team leader in the CNMI and guest speaker at the Rotary Club meeting, said he could not bend the law, and he will not bend the law just to spend federal funds faster.
“I refuse to sidestep the regulations just so the CNMI can spend the money faster. We will not be penalized for spending the funds slowly,” he said.
Ada said he has received so much criticism about the issue.
The CNMI, he added, “just can’t be compared to Guam or other places.”
He denied that the CNMI ARRA office is holding onto money for no reason and is trying to blame other agencies.
“There is no truth to these issues. They are just misperceptions. The ARRA office just coordinates with the expenditures and ensures that the money is used for the specific projects it is allotted for,” Ada said.
He also hopes that U.S. Congressman Gregorio C. Sablan would tone down his criticisms because it put the CNMI in a bad light.
“I refused to be rushed just because somebody says we have to rush the spending. This is one time for us to show that we can manage the ARRA funds well,” Ada said.
Sablan has said that the CNMI is “off to a slow start” in spending ARRA money, lagging behind four other territories that have spent as much as 25 percent of the funds given to them.
Sablan said the CNMI government has only paid out about $300,000 in ARRA funds while Guam has spent over $17 million already.
Based on the www.recovery.org Web site, $827,893 of the $53,045,513 ARRA funds announced for the CNMI had already been paid out, while the available funds totaled $46,139,523. The CNMI government had set an Oct. 10 deadline for ARRA fund recipient reporting.
Ada said only two executive line agencies failed to comply –the Department of Public Health and the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, which cited technical issues regarding registration.
He said the CNMI executive branch agencies’ reported total expenditures was $1,394,148.90, and the reports will be made available to the public by Oct. 31.
