Flashback April 08, 2002-2004

[B]April 08, 2002

Solution offered to financial worries[/B]

Public Safety Commissioner Edward C. Camacho is opening doors for DPS employees to pursue part-time job opportunities outside the department, in the wake of an ongoing initiative to reduce and eventually get rid of overtime in the government sector. Camacho disclosed the impending plan Friday during a press conference, a move that he said would first involve policy changes.

[B]Prison project lifts off[/B]

Using 17 new, gold-colored spades that glittered hotly under the scorching, noonday sun, representatives of the Commonwealth government, the clergy, and Telesource CNMI Inc. executives finally broke ground Friday on the $17.29-million Saipan Adult Prison project. After more than two years of delay brought on by protests and counter-protests that snagged the project’s momentum, it took all of three seconds for the 17 officials to shovel the white sand and flip them through the air to complete the groundbreaking rites that officially signaled the start of the project.

[B]Medicaid debt hurting CHC’s daily operations[/B]

Unpaid billings to the Commonwealth Health Center, including the indebtedness of the CNMI Medicaid Program, have resulted in drastic budget cuts for the Department of Public Health. This has heavily impacted on the department’s day-to-day operations, according to a senior health official. Acting Public Health Secretary Pete Untalan said the department had to contend with belt-tightening measures, such as freezing well-deserved salary increases of technical health personnel.

[B]April 08, 2003

Hopes high on reimbursements[/B]

The House Committee on U.S. and Foreign Affairs expressed high hopes that the U.S. Department of the Interior’s recent call for a “simple, fair and transparent” Compact-impact reimbursement process would spell better chances for the CNMI to collect on the “true costs of migration.” This, as committee chairman Rep. William S. Torres reiterated the need to arrive at a calibrated formula that would compute Compact-impact costs in a manner that is coherent, credible, defensible and uniform to all impacted entities-Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Marianas.

[B]Diego smoothens ruffled CUC feathers[/B]

The Babauta administration has no intention of deliberately keeping the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. in the dark about the proposed Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Plant. Rather, the proposal of the Maryland-based Sea Solar Power International to set up such a plant on Saipan is still a tentative matter and the Memorandum of Understanding that Gov. Juan N. Babauta signed with the company is intended to just allow the firm to come over and check the CNMI for such a project.

[B]Energy plant proposal turns off legislator[/B]

Sen. Ramon S. Guerrero can think of several reasons to pass up on the $50-million Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion plant that Maryland-based Sea Solar Power International is proposing to build in the CNMI. After meeting the company’s president in Washington D.C. last week, however, Guerrero has one reason that sticks out: the CNMI should do business only with “courteous” people.

[B]April 08, 2004

OPA cites Babauta for expenditure violation[/B]

The Office of the Public Auditor has cited Gov. Juan N. Babauta for violating several statutes, including exceeding his budget appropriation, during his term as CNMI Resident Representative to Washington D. C. in 1998 and 1999.

[B]China Southern Air bats for more flights to Saipan[/B]

China Southern Air, which was earlier reported as fielding direct flights to Tinian later in the month, has applied for additional flights to Saipan instead. This was learned from Commonwealth Ports Authority executive director Carlos Salas, who said that the application has been submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration requesting flight schedules to Saipan from any point in China. He, however, is still waiting for confirmation.