Finance: No more funds for pet projects

Finance Sec. Lucy DLG. Nielsen has cautioned lawmakers against re-appropriating anticipated balance from earlier funding allocated by the Legislature, dashing hopes by some members to push pet projects ahead of the November midterm polls.

Nielsen said that although the remaining funds appear on records, these money are no longer available for reprogramming into capital improvement projects being pitched by legislators for their respective voting precincts.

In a letter to House Ways and Means Committee chair Rep. Karl T. Reyes, the top finance official said they are still drafting a report on fund balances as the panel has earlier requested to shed light on where the money were spent.

But re-appropriation or reprogramming of these locally-sourced funds will be impossible because they are now part of the cumulative deficit of the government.

“Those funds, therefore, are not truly available for re-appropriation. They are only available on the books, but the actual cash to support re-appropriation or reprogramming is not there to fund other CIP projects,” Nielsen said.

The forthcoming report, which is currently being reconciled with the records of the Department of Public Works, is expected to clear confusion on the presence of the remaining funds amid lawmakers’ attempts to identify local money for their own projects.

According to Reyes, the committee would likely junk dozens of appropriation measures whose funds are sourced from the anticipated balance as a result of the DOF’s analysis.

“It’s just paper money, there is no cash at all,” he said in an interview yesterday. “I am going to refer this letter to the members of the House so that they will be informed that the money is not just there.”

The Ways and Means Committee has been trying to determine availability of funds since the House debated last month on the amount of balance remaining from a public law passed in 1994 appropriating more than $23 million in CIP funds for road, sewer and water projects in an obvious attempt to push their pet projects.

All its efforts so far have yielded negative despite meeting with DPW, DOF and the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation to look for these remaining funds.

These agencies drew up the comprehensive financial report from all departments that were given money under the CIP plan nearly five years ago.

Barely five months before the November polls, legislators are scrambling for funds to pitch respective projects in precinct level which otherwise are not qualified to receive money under the new CIP master plan.

Although it has become a practice for elected officials to do so, political observers expect it to heat up this year due to the financial crisis besetting the CNMI government.

In recent session, legislators have floated amount ranging from $90,000 to $1.3 million which is believed to be the balance still left from the original allocation.