The president has asked an additional $40,000 for Guam and $20,000 for Saipan for both offices to continue their operations.
Due to constraints in the 2010 fiscal year budget, Palau’s consular office in Saipan was closed on December 31 last year, while the Guam office will only have until March 31 to operate.
But in his recent trips to both Guam and Saipan, President Johnson Toribiong said the Palauan residents in both countries want the consulars offices open, and that they needed the offices’ services. What more, the president said, the 1,800 Palauan residents in Saipan and 3,000 in Guam felt left out and abandoned with the closure of both offices.
Chief of Staff Isaac Soaladaob in an interview also said, “The consular offices in Guam and Saipan are necessary not only to provide services for Palauan residents, but to open opportunities for Palau to promote itself in terms of Tourism and other businesses.”
He said that once the OEK approves the budget, they will immediately reopen the consular office in Saipan and continue operations in Guam.
The president, in a previous interview, promised that he will restructure the job descriptions of both offices to make sure that they provide the necessary services for Palauan residents in both countries.
