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Reyes calls for oversight on former MPLA
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Posted on Feb 26 2006
Senate Vice President Pete P. Reyes has called on his fellow lawmakers to conduct an oversight hearing on the former Marianas Public Lands Authority.
Reyes maintained that although MPLA had been abolished and replaced by the Department of Public Lands, the Senate should not allow agency’s former officials to go scot-free for irregularities that they might have committed.
“The new law does not prevent us from conducting an oversight on MPLA. Anything illegal should be investigated and anyone found to have committed an illegal act should be prosecuted. I don’t want to name names, but they know who they are,” the Saipan senator said.
The oversight would focus on past action the former officers and employees of Public Lands, he said.
Reyes also said that he had some documents showing corruption within the former MPLA. He intends to submit these documents to the Attorney General’s Office.
MPLA was abolished on Feb. 22, 2006.
Public Law 15-2, which allowed for the transfer of all MPLA functions to the Department of Public Lands, cited a constitutional provision as basis for abolishing the MPLA as an autonomous agency.
Article XI Section 4(f) of the Constitution, as amended in 1986, provided that the functions previously performed by the Marianas Public Lands
Corporation should be transferred to the executive branch of the government after its dissolution.
P.L. 15-2 also noted that “the Commonwealth’s experience with the management of public lands over the years has demonstrated the need for additional controls.”
The Department of Public Lands is now undergoing a transition period under the leadership of interim Secretary John Del Rosario. (Agnes E. Donato)
