THE Marianas Public Land Trust on Tuesday submitted its fiscal year 2020 report to the Legislature, but said it did not include financial reporting from the Department of Public Lands.
The MPLT board of trustees, now chaired by former Sen. Maria Frica T. Pangelinan, submitted the annual report to lawmakers in compliance with Article 11, Section 6 (e) of the CNMI Constitution. Included in the report is information about MPLT’s operations and investments of monies received from DPL.
The other trustees are former Rep. Vianney Hocog of Rota, former Speaker Pedro Paduna Guerrero, former Rep. Martin Ada and Pete Q. Cruz of Tinian.
In their annual report, the trustees said since MPLT has not received any financial reporting from DPL for FY 2020, “no receivable accrual has been made for this year. Any additional funds for FY 2020 received from DPL…will be recognized in FY 2021.”
The MPLT annual report also cited a CNMI Supreme Court ruling that found Public Law 16-31 unconstitutional as it infringes upon MPLT’s constitutionally mandated functions of receiving and investing revenue from public lands for the benefit of people of NMI descent.
Signed into law by then-Gov. Benigno R. Fitial in March 2009, P.L. 16-31 authorized DPL to use its operations funds to pay land compensation judgments.
But the CNMI Supreme Court stated that any attempt by the Legislature to appropriate funds from public land revenue before they reach MPLT infringes on the CNMI Constitution’s Article 11 Section 6.
“While DPL’s current practice is to withhold operating expenses from the monies generated through the management and disposition of public lands before transferring the money to MPLT, the authority for doing so is no longer constitutionally operative and the authority for doing so must exist elsewhere,” MPLT’s annual report stated.
It added that MPLT has had a history of communicating with DPL about its failure to remit the correct annual distribution.
“Failure to turn over the correct fund balance each fiscal year is clear violation of DPL’s fiduciary duty,” MPLT stated. “This breach for FY 2020 and for prior years has resulted in losses of distributable net income to the CNMI general fund.”
For the past 37 years, the trustees said, MPLT has transferred to the CNMI government’s general fund, $56.56 million which the Legislature had appropriated for various public agencies and departments including the Public School System, the Department of Public Safety, the Department of Public Works and the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp., among other agencies.
Over the last 30 years, MPLT said it has also disbursed $6.37 million to American Memorial Park for the maintenance of the federal park in accordance with Section 6(d) of the CNMI Constitution’s Article 11.
