‘Transparency a must for all CARES Act contracts’

A House of Representatives committee wants complete transparency in how the CNMI government will spend the $36 million it got through the CARES Act for its COVID-19 response in the CNMI.

Following the Department of Finance’s release of the expenditure plan for the CARES Act funding, the House Special Committee on Federal Assistance and Disaster Related Funding wants a more detailed breakdown of how the funds will be spent.

The committee, chaired by Rep. Ralph Yumul (R-Saipan), met last Monday to talk about some unresolved issues on federal funds that the CNMI has received for help on COVID-19 and even for previous disasters.

“At least now, we have a spending plan and makes it easier now for us to go in and see [whether] they’re really following the plan. We can question as how each sole-source is justified. I know we do have procurement rules in the CNMI, but when a large amount is being expended, sometimes, they deviate, and that’s when things happen,” said Yumul.

House floor leader John Paul Sablan (R-Saipan) specifically wants to see documents reflecting the contractual agreement between the government and the two designated quarantine sites on Saipan: the Kanoa Resort in Susupe and Pacific Islands Club Saipan in Afetna.

“I just got this morning the plan from the administration for the $36 million in the CARES Act,” he said. “I was going through it, I know that some of those items are pretty much COVID-19-related, but none of it addresses the rental payment or the lease agreement for PIC and Kanoa.”

Sablan specifically wants to know which source of funding is paying, and the actual amount, for the use of Kanoa and PIC. “Having this federal aid come into play, what does that result into, meaning how much of the local revenue from the local economy does it free up, and where are all of those local revenues directed to?”

Based on the expenditure plan, of the $36 million allocated to the CNMI for COVID-19 health care and community response, $200,000 will be for rental costs of the off-site quarantine facilities.

Not just Kanoa and PIC

Rep. Tina Sablan (Ind-Saipan) echoed this and proposed for the committee to also get not just the contracts with Kanoa and PIC, but also all the other contracts connected with the COVID-19 operations.

“A number of those [sole]-source contracts are going out toward catering, going out toward all kinds of supplies, testing kits, a charter flight, the renovations that are happening at the facility, these are all sorts of contracting,” she said. “Although the governor, the administration has that authority in a state of emergency, it’s really important to just bring some transparency to how much we’re spending and to where is the money [going] exactly.”

A call for the committee to have access to the weekly reports from the Department of Finance and the Office of Management and Budget, as directed by the governor, was also raised.

Rep. Joseph Lee Pan Guerrero (R-Saipan) said the committee must also be mindful whether a contract had actually been executed. Guerrero wants to know about Mariana Resort & Spa, one of the initial sites identified as a quarantine facility. “We want to know how much was expended when they were prepping it up, and why was it not utilized? We have to bear in mind that this is a pandemic. The governor has the authority whatsoever to use the facility because that’s public property, money that can go back into DPL.”

“I do understand that the business aspect needs this additional revenue for us to generate, but we have a huge facility away from the community. We’re talking about safety. So why is it not being maximized at this point?” Guerrero asked.

House Federal and Foreign Affairs committee chair Luis John Castro (R-Saipan) proposed for the committee to meet regularly with the governor’s authorized representative, to be kept abreast of COVID-19 operations and financing. “The main thing we’re definitely going to need is a lot of a lot of transparency with this,” Castro said.