THE House Committee on Ways and Means has requested Attorney General Robert T. Torres to conduct a separate investigation into the independent contracts of Adam B. Turner and Charles D. Jordan, who are Gov. Juan N. Babauta’s special assistants.
In a June 13 letter, Rep. Stanley T. Torres, R-Saipan, said the committee, which he chairs, decided to request the attorney general to conduct a probe aside from what the Office of the Public Auditor has already done so that the panel would be able to make a “thorough and objective review” of the contracts which he found “highly questionable and unethical.”
Torres said that while the OPA report provided to his committee on June 12 “has weight and is reliable,” it’s credibility may nonetheless be affected by the fact that Public Auditor Michael S. Sablan was an independent contractor during the previous administration.
“Mr. Sablan’s previous contract with the Tenorio administration might affect the credibility of the…report, thus there is a need for another review of the contracts by the attorney general,” Torres said in the letter.
Sablan was then Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio’s special adviser for finance and budget.
In an interview, Torres said he was “not satisfied” with the OPA report as “there were some legal questions in the contracts that were not discussed and addressed.”
House Speaker Heinz S. Hofschneider, R-Saipan, in a separate interview said the governor has to clarify the contracts of Turner and Jordan.
He said the fact that these individuals are providing services for payment under a contract means that they “are outside the typical definition of government employees.”
He said that if a contract is executed for a government employee for purposes of fulfilling a special assistant position, then “it follows that these individuals are government employees and therefore they should be under the exempted contract of the civil service positions.”
But if the contract is not exempted services and it is procured for the services that they are expert in “then that’s procuring services and that is a separate service” outside of the civil service.
He said Turner can’t sit as policy consultant and acting executive director of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Commission at the same time as stated in his independent contract.
Torres is also urging the Division of Revenue and Taxation to “go after” Turner. He said OPA revealed that he had no license to work as an independent contractor of the government.
“If he has no license, that means he is not paying business gross revenue tax,” Torres said.
