FORMER Governors Benigno R. Fitial and Juan N. Babauta, and Vice Speaker Blas Jonathan Attao said they are grateful to the Marianas Public Land Trust for providing loans to critical government agencies.
In separate interviews, Fitial and Babauta said they join MPLT in its objection to Senate Legislative Initiative 22-5, which proposes to give the governor and the Legislature oversight and appropriation powers over MPLT.
It was during Fitial’s administration when the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. received a $3.5 million loan from MPLT to acquire power supply from Aggreko.
Fitial said there were “power outages after power outages” in the CNMI at the time, necessitating the acquisition of power from Aggreko.
The MPLT loan “saved” CUC, he added.
It was also MPLT that provided a $3.3 million line of credit to the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp.
Babauta, who was appointed by Fitial as the first chief executive officer of CHCC, said the hospital was on the verge of shutting down some of its services due to lack of funds.
Babauta said MPLT “basically bailed the hospital out, and CHCC was able to continue paying its doctors and nurses.”
For his part, Vice Speaker Blas Jonathan Attao said he is grateful to MPLT for the $15 million loan it provided to the CNMI government following Super Typhoon Yutu.
MPLT Chairman Martin Ada, on behalf of the other trustees, said Senate Legislative Initiative 22-5 “myopically ignores MPLT’s more substantial investments with secured transactions directly benefitting the executive branch [when the] Legislature could not fund by appropriation.”
It is unfortunate, he said, that these investments are not even mentioned in the “findings” of S.L.I. 22-5.
Authored by Senate Vice President Justo S. Quitugua, S.L.I. 22-5 proposes to “require MPLT and its board of trustees to exercise transparency and accountability as a Commonwealth government entity, to provide for reasonable expenses of administration by law, and to require the annual operating budget of the trust to be approved and appropriated by the Legislature.”
A legislative initiative is a proposal to amend the CNMI Constitution and must be passed by three-fourths of the members of each house present and voting. The governor cannot veto a legislative initiative, but it must be approved by voters themselves.
