THE Senate Committee on Fiscal Affairs on Tuesday agreed to endorse a new version of House Bill 23-95 which would amend the law that allows the CNMI government to obtain a $15 million revolving line-of-credit from the Marianas Public Land Trust.
After a lengthy deliberation on the House measure, which was authored by Rep. Blas Jonathan Attao, the Senate committee considered the additional provisions recommended by Tinian Sens. Jude U. Hofschneider and Karl King-Nabors.
Public Law 23-12 allows a $15 million “bridge financing or advances” for the costs related to capital improvement projects funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration. The law pledges the funds that the CNMI government will receive as reimbursements from the federal agency to pay the MPLT loan at an interest of 5.5% per annum.
Taking into account MPLT’s concern about the “lack of security” in P.L. 23-12, the House unanimously passed H.B. 23-95 to restore the law’s original intent, which is to pledge the public land interest income distribution due to the general fund. This will allow MPLT to withhold the public land interest income as payment of the loan and/or as security in case of default.
The new Senate version of H.B. 23-95, which is now on its way back to the House, also allows a line-of-credit agreement or loan between MPLT and Rota and Tinian or a CNMI autonomous agency.
Present in the committee meeting on Tuesday were Senate Vice President Donald Manglona, Senate Floor Leader Corina Magofna, Sens. Celina Babauta, Dennis Mendiola and Karl King-Nabors.
In his remarks, Manglona, the committee chair, said the new version of H.B. 23-95 would allow the Legislature “to keep track of drawdowns as they come.” He said the safeguards are in place so that no one can abuse the process.
