CNMI owes 3 years of dues to Asia-Pacific legislatures’ body

The CNMI Legislature owes three years of contributions to the Asian-Pacific Parliamentarians’ Union totaling $3,600, its Tokyo-based Secretariat said.

“The Central Secretariat has difficulty in forming a budget plan for FY 2012 because of the uncertainty of payments by member countries,” APPU Secretary-General Tetsuya Hirose said in a letter to CNMI Senate President Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota).

The CNMI Legislature has yet to pay its annual dues for 2010, 2011, and 2012, each at $1,200.

“You are kindly requested to remit the said amount at the earliest possible time,” the Secretariat added.

Manglona, when asked for comment, said yesterday that the CNMI Legislature will make minimum payment of at least $1,200, which is only for one year contribution, to maintain its membership with APPU.

“With the economic crisis we’re in, the members choose not to make this a priority. Nevertheless, APPU is an organization that we should continue to be a member of. That’s why we should make minimum payment to maintain our membership with this good organization,” Manglona said in a phone interview.

For 2012, the 23 member-countries of APPU are supposed to pay a total of $58,400. It is not known as of press time which ones among member-countries have outstanding obligations to the regional body.

The CNMI is one of the APPU member-countries with the lowest annual dues of $1,200, along with Guam, Kiribati, Mongolia and Tuvalu.

Countries with the highest annual dues are Japan, 1.2 million yen or approximately $14,833; China, $3,900; Korea, $3,900; Malaysia, $3,900; and the Philippines, $3,900.

The other APPU member-countries and their 2012 annual dues are the Marshall Islands, $1,800; the Federated States of Micronesia, $1,800; Nauru, $2,400; Palau, $1,800; Papua New Guinea, $2,000; the Solomon Islands, $1,500; Thailand, $3,600; Tonga, $1,800; Vanuatu, $2,400; Western Samoa, $1,800; the Cook Islands, $1,500; Fiji, $2,400; and Lao People’s Democratic Republic, $2,000. Vietnam, meanwhile, is on observer status.

The CNMI hosted an APPU Council Meeting in June 1999 and 1982.

Established in 1965, the former Asian Parliamentarians Union, now APPU, accepted members from Pacific island nations in 1975, reflecting close relations between these two regions and strengthening solidarity and the force of freedom among their peoples.

It’s not only the APPU that the CNMI owes annual membership dues to.

In June 2011, the Association of Pacific Island Legislatures also said the CNMI had yet to pay its 2010 and 2011 annual dues totaling $20,000, even as 11 lawmakers and Legislative Bureau staffers were off to attend an APIL general assembly to Palau that time. Lawmakers, however, made some payments to APIL later on.