Interior weighs in on Fitial’s offer to lease islands

U.S. Interior Assistant Secretary for Insular Affairs Tony M. Babauta and Office of Insular Affairs director Nik Pula separately said yesterday that Gov. Benigno R. Fitial’s reported remarks at a Beijing economic forum offering for lease some CNMI islands is something that they would look into.

Interior has oversight over U.S. insular areas including the CNMI, Guam, and American Samoa.

“I’m not going to say I support it or I don’t support it. We’ll have to look into this and see if that’s something within the confines of laws,” Pula said in an interview at the CNMI Department of Commerce’s job expo yesterday morning.

Pula said he does not know of the content or context of Fitial’s statements, but acknowledged that it’s something the Interior will look at, considering that the CNMI is a U.S. territory.

Just like Pula, Babauta said he could not critique what the governor said at the Beijing conference.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of legal work that would have to go into something like that,” he told reporters. “We’ll certainly look into it and see what authorities kind of underlie that sort of comment, if that’s something that’s even possible. I’m sure we want to talk to the governor about it. I’m not going to critique whatever he said wherever he was at without knowing more about it.”

Babauta said the Interior’s focus is to try to help turn around the CNMI economy.

Fitial told an economic forum of nearly 400 in Beijing that he is willing to lease some of the CNMI’s Northern Islands but only if it’s not for military purposes, to help provide job opportunities and improve the CNMI economy.

Press secretary Angel Demapan said Fitial was making reference to the availability of mass public lands in the undeveloped and uninhabited Northern Islands, in remarks made during the U.S.-China Governors Dialogue that included government and business representatives to discuss potential investment and job creation opportunities.

Demapan, who is with the governor in Beijing, said that Fitial took the opportunity to market the CNMI’s greatest resource-availability of land-“for large-scale investments like agriculture, retirement communities, timeshare homes, and electronics manufacturing to both large business entities and/or public-private partnerships or co-ops.”

Acting governor Eloy S. Inos said yesterday that the administration is trying to look for ways to be able to employ people and get the economy back on track.

He said leasing an island is almost similar to leasing public and private lands on Saipan, Tinian, or Rota.

“It’s not a wild idea. It is something that will require due diligence at a much higher level than the normal commercial transaction,” he said.