THE Marianas Public Land Trust on Thursday filed a complaint against the Department of Public Lands for failure to remit net public land lease earnings to MPLT.
In the complaint, MPLT legal counsel Robert T. Torres also asked the Office of the Public Auditor and the Office of the Attorney General to audit and investigate DPL’s handling of and accounting for public land lease funds, including its “continuously withholding of net land lease funds due to MPLT.”
Torres told acting Public Auditor Dora Inos-Deleon Guerrero and Attorney General Edward Manibusan that for many years, MPLT has objected to DPL’s willful failure to remit public land lease income. Despite the trustees’ efforts, the problem remains, Torres said.
In MPLT’s view, he said DPL has violated and continues to violate its constitutional and statutory responsibilities to remit net public land lease income to MPLT.
He said it should be the trustees’ obligation to compel DPL to comply with its obligations as a line department of the executive branch carrying out the fundamental policies of Article XI of the CNMI Constitution.
The trustees filed the complaint after DPL Secretary Teresita Santos asserted that no remittance is due to MPLT for fiscal years 2021 and 2022.
Torres said in prior years, DPL allowed the taking of $2.5 million by the Office of the Governor during Gov. Ralph DLG Torres’s administration without securing the return of those funds to DPL, which is the DPL secretary’s fiduciary duty, the complaint stated.
MPLT also accused DPL of the following:
1) Failure to remit $1 million from the settlement fund in DPL’s case against Mariana Resort & Spa.
2) Failure to remit $2.5 million taken by then-Gov. Benigno Fitial in FY 2010 through an executive order.
3) Failure to remit $1.977 million in land compensation as indicated in a 2012 audit.
4) Unauthorized establishment of bank accounts to place land lease funds.
MPLT asserts that OPA and the OAG should undertake an audit/investigation of DPL’s actions and, if necessary, enforce the constitutional and statutory provisions for DPL to ensure compliance.
MPLT has made DPL aware of its obligations, but the department continues to follow its own rationale to circumvent its duty to account for and remit net public land lease income to MPLT, the complaint stated.
It added that DPL’s position that it needs only to submit its budget to the Legislature “for informational purpose only” is another violation.
Variety was unable to get a comment from DPL.
