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Senate to OPA: Delve deeper into the ARRA contract award
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Posted on Aug 18 2011
The Senate wants the Office of the Public Auditor to further investigate the almost $400,000 sole-source contract award for an ARRA management contract, saying that the U.S. Interior’s Inspector General report is not definitive in its conclusion.
At the same time, Delegate Gregorio Kilili Sablan said he respects the Senate’s decision to request the CNMI Bar Association to investigate Attorney General Edward Buckingham for alleged ethical violations in the ARRA contract award.
Sablan said he watched in awe as Buckingham was being interviewed on KSPN News last night about the Office of the Attorney General’s efforts in prosecuting those who will be found tampering with Commonwealth Utilities Corp. systems.
“If you steal from CUC, it’s a violation of the law and you will be prosecuted. If you approve a contract that’s in violation of the law, it’s appropriate…The same standard applied to ordinary citizens should be applied to the AG himself,” said Sablan, referring to the IG report’s findings on the contract award.
The Fitial administration has been saying that the IG report did not say that ethics and procurement laws and rules were violated when it awarded an ARRA management contract to former Commerce secretary Michael Ada’s Integrated Professional Solutions, but only said “may have violated.”
Sen. Frank Cruz (R-Tinian), chairman of the Senate Committee on Executive Appointments and Government Investigations, said it’s OPA’s job to “investigate” and “audit” questionable contract awards, even if the alleged erring party is the attorney general.
“Like we said before, the attorney general is the highest law enforcement officer so he has to uphold all laws…People are losing faith and trust in the attorney general. If the Senate ignores this case, the people will also lose trust in the Senate,” Cruz said yesterday.
