‘Stop coaching the Legislature’

Senate Floor Leader Pete P. Reyes on Friday lashed back at criticisms leveled against the Legislature for sitting on significant bills that would raise badly-needed revenues for the government amid its mounting financial obligations.

In a statement, the senator lambasted Dan Nielsen, the governor’s special assistant for education, for questioning the inaction on legislation pending with the Senate for several months now.

“If Mr. Nielsen focused more of his time and attention on our students scholarship needs, rather than armchair-coaching Senate legislative matters… then perhaps our student scholarship program would not be in such a shambles that it is in today,” he said.

Mr. Reyes, who has been very vocal about his displeasure over the implementation of scholarship program, charged Nielsen of doing “nothing positive” for the students despite his position.

“In the future, I would suggest that the governor’s special assistant for education improve his performance and focus more of his time on education or ask the governor for a transfer to the Economic Development Division,” he added.

Mr. Reyes’ statement came after Mr. Nielsen told reporters last week that while lawmakers have expressed concern over lack of funding for CNMI’s scholarship program, they have yet to act on several measures intended to boost local coffers.

Among those he cited were the free trade zone bill and qualifying tax certificate program, both of which are aimed at wooing foreign investors into the CNMI, as well as the Board of Accountancy bill allowing licensure examination for certified public accountants that will mean keeping the money spent by examinees here rather than on Guam where it is given.

“That really ties the governor’s hands in terms of generating immediate revenues. We want to work with the Legislature in getting this through so that rather than suffering criticisms, we’ll have additional revenue to support a lot of these other programs,” he added.

Mr. Nielsen leveled the criticisms in the wake of major disagreements between some members of the Legislature and the administration over the scholarship’s policy which has been changed due to the cash flow problems confronting the CNMI. Mr. Reyes has vowed to slash the proposed budget for non-essential services, such as purchase of computer, housing allowance and the CNMI’s liaison office in Manila, under FY 2000 spending package in order to increase funding for scholarship.

The program has drawn a 50 percent cut over the previous year’s budget to distribute among 1,100 recipients of various student financial aid, forcing the Scholarship’s Office to implement drastic measures such as eliminating assistance for part-time students and reducing amount of the grants. (See related story on Page 1)

“It is unfortunate that there has been such serious and unfair criticism over the scholarship issue,” said Mr. Nielsen as he noted the $80 million deficit facing the government now will impact on the way local resources are spread among various departments and agencies.