ONCE again, allegations about improprieties and misspending of public funds involving public officials have been raised. The Senate minority bloc is claiming that some senators in the leadership have “ghost” employees. Asked to comment, one of these senators more or less said: Look who’s talking. Meanwhile, we were told that the leadership has also begun collecting dirt that will be soon flung at the minority senators.
This is all very entertaining indeed, but can someone on Capitol Hill tell us whatever happened to similar allegations raised by Sen. Kumoi Guerrero two years ago and documented by then Public Auditor Leo LaMotte? What about the findings of the other House and Senate oversight investigations into other alleged misspending of public funds involving other officials and agencies? And how many OPA reports filed by LaMotte are biodegrading at the Attorney General’s Office?
Several years ago, Variety revealed that one legislator had at least 35 FTEs. This lawmaker’s office was usually closed during regular business hours and he never produced the kind of legislative work that taxpayers would expect from someone with such a well-staffed office (which included his girlfriend and some of her relatives). Around the same time, scores of FTEs were hired by other officials even before funding had been appropriated for these new positions. The only requirement that these unfunded employees had to meet was that they were registered voters. What happened next was a lot of grandstanding in the session halls of the Legislature as some supposedly appalled lawmakers denounced these blatantly illegal hiring practices. All this—and a lot more—was dutifully reported by this paper which also repeatedly urged that the appropriate legal steps be taken. But was someone held responsible for these misdeeds?
Well, let’s put it this way. We probably won’t be reading the same old stories about the same old problems if any action was taken against them in the past. After all, the point of raising these concerns and conducting oversight hearings is to find out what went wrong and who was responsible for it. If probable cause was established then the end result should be the filing of charges in court and the enactment of legislation that would help prevent similar violations of the law from occurring again.
What is happening on our Hill, however, is a periodic disclosure of improprieties by those whose political wishes had not been accommodated. Hence this selective righteous outrage, the intensity of which is inversely proportional to a politician’s proximity to leadership positions.
This cynical political tactic could be extremely effective—but only if the media and the public are afflicted with amnesia. Variety, however, has been in existence for more than 30 years and has a quite reliable memory regarding local political shenanigans. It is now clear to us that any and all such allegations could be easily “fixed” with the proper deal. If all the senators, for example, would reach a new political settlement what do you think would happen to the issues raised by the minority bloc?
Perhaps it is time to have an elected public auditor and attorney general with fixed terms and with their own budgets. The people of the CNMI have heard enough about these wrongdoings. It is time to have officials who would finally do something about them.
