REPRESENTATIVES Corina L. Magofna and Edwin Propst on Tuesday prefiled House Legislative Initiative 22-2, which would authorize the election of the CNMI public auditor.
Also co-sponsoring the legislative initiative are Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez, Reps. Donald Manglona, Patrick San Nicolas, Richard Lizama, Denita Yangetmai and Vicente Camacho.
H.L.I. 22-2 states, “In order for the public auditor to function without the appearance of bias, it is necessary to permit their overall performance to be directly appraised by the citizens of the Commonwealth.”
A proposal to amend the CNMI Constitution, H.L.I. 22-2 requires an affirmative vote of three-fourths of the members each of the House and the Senate before it can be placed on the ballot for ratification by voters.
H.L.I. 22-2 proposes the following provisions:
• The public auditor shall be elected by the voters of the CNMI in a mid-term election, and shall serve a term of four years.
• The Office of the Public Auditor will remain non-partisan.
• No candidate for public auditor shall declare a political party affiliation, seek the endorsement or receive direct or indirect financial or material support from a political party.
• A candidate for public auditor, shall file his or her candidacy with the Commonwealth Election Commission in the manner similar to a candidate for governor, but there shall be no primary election for the position of public auditor.
• An elected public auditor can serve two four-year consecutive terms only.
H.L.I. 22-2 states that the CNMI public auditor must either be a certified public accountant or an attorney licensed to practice in the Commonwealth “or have at least five years of experience in the establishment and enactment of government budgets.”
Currently, the CNMI public auditor is appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of each house of the Legislature.
No person may be appointed as public auditor unless that person is a certified public accountant and has a minimum of five years experience in accounting or government finance.
The public auditor is appointed for a term of six years. No person may serve as public auditor for more than two consecutive full six-year terms or the balance of an unexpired term plus two full six-year terms.
According to H.L.I. 22-2, the Office of the Public Auditor “should be free of political influence or interference.”
The present system, H.L.I. 22-2 says, “may create an uncompromising environment in which individuals with weak mental faculty inevitably succumb to pressures from undue political influence, eventually leading to potential suppression of findings, subsequently delaying proper prosecution in cases of theft, covering up infractions made by political cronies, purposely circumventing established procurement policies, etc.”
H.L.I. 22-2 states that Guam “has successfully adopted the process of electing its public auditor and as a result has significantly curbed the amount of misuse and cemented greater efficiency since its adoption.”
Guam’s current elected public auditor is the former Democratic speaker of the island’s legislature, Benjamin Cruz, who is also a former chief justice of the Guam Supreme Court.
