IT’S back to the drawing board for a CNMI valuation study that would determine the “real value” of the Commonwealth.
Secretary of Finance David DLG Atalig on Friday said the budget was “very insufficient” to the responses the Department of Finance received from its initial request for proposals, or RFP, for a valuation study.
The Department of Finance sought proposals from companies and consultants who can conduct a study and prepare a report on the true value of the Commonwealth.
“We’re going to need to reevaluate and possibly reduce the scope of our RFP and announce for a valuation study to be done again shortly,” Atalig said.
He hopes that this can be achieved in the next couple of weeks so that by the end of June, another RFP will be out with a reduced scope to try to complete a valuation study of the Commonwealth’s true value.
The Department of Finance was awarded $363,736 by the U.S. Department of the Interior-Office of Insular Affairs to come up with a CNMI valuation report.
Secretary Atalig said in July 2021 that the last bond that the CNMI issued used a valuation based on a 2000 Census report for real value, valuing the Commonwealth at $1.2 billion.
“As we all know, the Commonwealth is worth more than $1.2 billion,” he said.
Prior to the global Covid-19 pandemic, the Commonwealth was looking into floating a pension obligation bond, which Atalig said was one of the factors that triggered the need for an updated valuation of the value of CNMI government properties, as well as the value of the Commonwealth in general.
“During that time, we did not have anything on record that gave us a true valuation,” he said.
Atalig said there is a need to show investors that the Commonwealth is much more valuable today than it was over two decades ago.
Moreover, he said it will take about two years for this study to be completed, given the amount of data that will have to be collected.
The study initially was to determine the value of real estate transactions, as well as the appraised value of government property, buildings, and assets; a valuation of economic values, the islands’ natural resources, including the Northern Islands and the lands leased to the U.S. military.
Once the current true value of the Commonwealth is determined, Atalig said it will be updated every few years.
