Flashback – Feb. 2000-Feb. 2002

Feb. 7, 2000

Reduction in expenses exceeds revenue decline

Austerity measures put in place by the Tenorio Administration reaped good fruits as indicated by the sharp reduction in overall government expenditures that even exceeded contraction in revenues last year, a report from the Department of Finance said. Government revenues in 1999 dropped by about 20 percent compared with the previous year, while expenditures in three major areas had been reduced by an average of 66 percent. During the same period, the Executive Branch managed to push overtime expenses lower by at least 56 percent, travel spending by 73 percent, and expenditures for vehicle leases and purchase by 76 percent.

Lack of permanent AG hampers creation of homicide task force

Efforts to organize a homicide task force composed of the Department of Public Safety and the Attorney General’s Office may be moving slow but DPS Commissioner Charles W. Ingram has given the assurance that he has not dropped the plan. The joint homicide task force with the Attorney General’s Investigation Unit is expected to facilitate the solution of pending homicide cases. While logistics is one area which has hampered its organization, Mr. Ingram said the lack of a permanent Attorney General has somehow contributed to the problem. When it is finally organized, the Attorney General’s Criminal Division expects an increase in case load. The division has already seen a nine percent jump in the number of cases it is handling from 1998 to 1999.

Feb. 7, 2001

Leaders meet to empower Pacific promise to CEDAW

Representatives of 14 Pacific Island nations will meet in Auckland next week for a sub-regional training workshop in support to the preparation of States Parties’ Reports to be submitted to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. The workshop aims to increase the participants’ awareness of and capacity to act in support of women’s rights and the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, including obligations of ratification and reporting progress in their countries. The sub-regional training workshop is being jointly funded and organized by the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women, United Nations Development Program, and the Government of New Zealand with input from the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.

$4M funding for GHLI sought

Officials of the Northern Mariana Islands Retirement Fund sought anew the assistance of the Legislature to review other possible funding sources in hopes to settle over $4 million debts to at least 295 on and off-island health service providers. Most of the Group Health and Life Insurance Program subscribers are being turned away by different service providers or are being asked to pay up front due to mounting medical bills the agency is yet to settle, program manager Dolores Moore disclosed yesterday. Records showed that the government-health insurance program has outstanding payable of $2,995,486.48 to service providers in the Commonwealth, Guam, Hawaii, and the mainland US to date.

Feb. 7, 2002

Norman’s oversight equates to fatter govt coffers

Since Dec. 24, Rep. Norman S. Palacios of Tinian has been running up a tab of $100 a day and the amount has now reached a staggering $4,500. Exactly 45 days after the Dec. 24 deadline set by the Commission on Elections, Palacios has yet to submit his election campaign expenses-an omission that would subject him to a penalty of $100 a day, as provided in the 2001 Election Reform Act. With Palacios not expected to arrive from the U.S. mainland in the next two weeks, the penalty may yet go beyond the $5,000-mark and could even reach $6,000.

Court denies PSA motion to halt CPA, AIC alarm system contract

A Commonwealth judge denied a request by the Pacific Security Alarm to enjoin the Commonwealth Ports Authority and the AIC Marianas Inc. from executing a Saipan International Airport security access system project contract that was entered last October 3, 2001. Superior Court Associate Judge Robert C. Naraja, after reviewing the records, ruled that the CPA made “rational and logical decisions regarding the PSA’s grounds for protest.” The PSA, which finished second to the AIC in the lowest bid proposals, is protesting the CPA decision to award the project to the AIC.