Senate panel to ask OPA, OAG to further probe MPLT land purchase

Senate Committee on Executive Appointments and Government Investigations chair Frank Cruz (R-Tinian) said his panel is poised to ask both the Office of the Public Auditor and the Office of the Attorney General to investigate further the Marianas Public Land Trust’s purchase of private land on Capital Hill despite the availability of public lands.

“The EAGI Committee would like OPA and the AG’s Office to do a follow-up investigation, in addition to what we are doing now to determine whether there were improprieties in the buying of private land even though there are lots of available public lands. MPLT spent $272,000 on that property,” Cruz told Saipan Tribune on Friday afternoon.

The Senate EAGI asked 13 set of questions and documents from MPLT related to the private land purchase. Cruz said he has yet to review the documents submitted.

The Senate separately rejected the re-appointments of Alvaro Santos and Gregoria Fitial-Omar to serve on the MPLT board over their decision to buy the private land in question.

Cruz said the Senate EAGI Committee recommended Santos’ rejection because the panel thinks Santos failed to do his fiduciary responsibility when the MPLT board, under his tenure as chairman, bought the private land.

He said the investigation that the panel is conducting now is separate from the investigation they did earlier that led to their recommendation to the full Senate to reject Santos’ re-appointment.

“The reason why we acted on Santos and Fitial-Omar’s re-appointments separately is that we wanted to make sure whether Fitial-Omar was also involved in the purchase of private property. I was about to vote for her re-appointment but we later found out she was involved so we also recommended her re-appointment’s rejection. In these hard times, why would an agency like MPLT buy private property for its office building when it could take advantage of public property?” Cruz added.

Senate floor leader Pete Reyes (R-Saipan) had accused the EAGI Committee as well as the senators who rejected Santos and Fitial-Omar’s re-appointments of singling out nominees from Saipan when it comes to rejecting Gov. Benigno R. Fitial’s appointments.

Reyes accused Rota and Tinian senators of exacting revenge against the governor over his controversial remark describing Rota and Tinian senators as “stupid” for rejecting a House bill legalizing casino gaming on Saipan.

Cruz reiterated that his committee’s recommendations were based on findings that Santos and Fitial-Omar failed to do their fiduciary duties. Fitial-Omar is the governor’s younger sister, while Santos is a known Fitial supporter.

In a two-page committee report, the EAGI panel said when it was furnished a copy of an MPLT check for the purchase of the private property in question, the committee determined that Fitial-Omar “is equally responsible” for the decision to buy the land.

The panel said the MPLT board had given prior approval for Santos to find a suitable property upon which to build an MPLT office building. However, the board no longer had a quorum to approve and finalize the preliminary findings of Santos and Fitial-Omar at the time of the purchase. The committee said as a result, their actions were null and void and without legal authority as the board did not have quorum.

“With the abundance of available public land, which could have been obtained by MPLT at no cost, just like other government agencies, the decision by Mr. Santos and Ms. Fitial-Omar was unjustified and indefensible. This is an absolute breach of their fiduciary duty,” the panel said.

The EAGI Committee said it continues to review the entirety of the land purchase separate and apart from the confirmation report to determine if this matter necessitates further review by OPA or the OAG.

Besides Santos and Fitial-Omar, the Senate also recently rejected the re-appointment of Viola Alepuyo to serve another term on the Public Utilities Commission. Another of the governor’s nominee and supporter, Sixto Igisomar, is on the verge of Senate rejection. All these nominees are from Saipan.