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Article 11 initiative seeks to give NMDs a cut in public land income
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Posted on Dec 02 2013
Another proposed change to Article 11 of the CNMI Constitution seeks to put up a royalty account so that persons of Northern Marianas descent may receive payments from public land leases.
Revenues from public land leases are invested by the Marianas Public Land Trust.
Right now, the method of transferring earnings from MPLT investments is to transfer the earnings to the general fund.
House Legislative Initiative 18-13 is sponsored by Rep. Antonio Agulto (Ind-Saipan), along with five others.
It seeks to amend Section 6(d) of the CNMI Constitution’s Article XI to require MPLT to “distribute earnings from its investments to persons of Northern Marianas descent.
The initiative says public lands belong collectively to people in the CNMI who are NMDs, and income from these public lands is intended to directly benefit NMDs.
Under the initiative, MPLT trustees—after retaining a balance necessary to meet reasonable expenses of administration—shall transfer 75 percent of the remaining annual interest accrued into a dividend account.
“Each year, the trustees shall establish a record date to determine those persons of Northern Marianas Descent eligible to receive a dividend. The amount in the dividend account on the record date shall be distributed equally among those persons of Northern Marianas Descent 18 years or older who were residing in the Commonwealth on the record date,” the initiative says.
HLI 18-13 needs to get a “yes” vote of three-fourths of the members of each house present and voting.
Once the initiative passes the House and the Senate, the question will then be placed on the ballot for voters’ ratification.
Two weeks ago, the House an Article 11 initiative seeking to allow both the use of public land lease revenues for land acquisition or compensation, as well as subjecting the Department of Public Lands’ annual proposed budget to legislative “approval.”
HLI 18-6, authored by Speaker Joseph Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan), now heads to the Senate for action.
Another of the speaker’s Article 11 initiative, HLI 18-5, has yet to be acted on by the House. HLI 18-5 increases to 99 years the maximum public land lease currently at only 55 years.
