According to Jerome Ierome, Criminal Judicial Planning Agency executive director, said the American Reinvestment of Recovery Act requires that project proposals should be ready for implementation.
There is no room for project proposals that have yet to be drafted, Ierome said.
Since some CIPs are among the CNMI’s “ready-to-go” projects, the CNMI’s stimulus team decided to request ARRA funding for them, he added.
He noted that the governor has the authority to reprogram or request the U.S. Office of Insular Affairs to reroute funding from one CIP to another.
If a CIP is included in the ARRA funding, the money for the project can be earmarked for new proposals, Ierome said.
He added that many CIPs were broken down into different components and submitted to the stimulus team.
The Saipan power plant repair project, which received $4.6 million in CIP funding, was broken down into separate ARRA applications, one of which is seeking additional power generation units that will cost $36 million.
The power plant repair received $3.8 million more after Gov. Benigno Fitial reprogrammed the money from the federal wastewater treatment projects in Kagman and Rota.
Some of the wastewater projects that have CIP funding have also been submitted to the CNMI’s ARRA coordinating team.
Phases 2 and 3 of the Cross-Island road reconstruction and drainage improvement project, which is federally funded, has also been included in the CNMI’s request for stimulus funds.
The CNMI said it needs $15 million for this project.
After three weeks of meeting in an office of Commonwealth Health Center, the stimulus team took a break last Friday.
Ierome said they will sit down with the administration officials this week to review the stimulus package applications.
As of last week, he said, they were looking at a total of $338.5 million in project proposals.
