Accountability includes lawmakers

At Issue: The fireworks of intramural exchange among senators on the expenditure of public funds.

Our View: Like other public sector employees, lawmakers aren’t immune from accountability of public funds.

Whether it is requested or not, the public auditor is mandated to undertake critical ocular review of how lawmakers spend hard earned taxpayers money. And the public auditor has made this point abundantly clear!
Therefore, the fireworks of politically correct rhetoric is at best, pyrotechnic display right before the 4th of July celebration.

With respect to the surrender of the $60,000 annual fees for off-island lawmakers who commute to and from Tinian and Rota weekly, such expenditure may look a bit hefty when viewed strictly from a numbers standpoint.
But let us assume that the seat of the central government is situated either on Tinian or Rota. It means a weekly trip to either island of all 16 Saipan Representatives and its three senators.

Unless the Saipan delegation can rent a barracks for its quarters in, i.e., Tinian, most would probably be staying at Tinian’s Dynasty. You figure in their per diem, ground transportation, office space per member, staff and related expenses. The annual cost of funding an already expensive bicameral legislative system would be nothing short of astronomical.

While it is equally vital lawmakers account for the expenditure of taxpayers money, specifically, whether expenses fall within the definition of a public purpose, the greater question issue is our lack of resolve to downsize the current arrangement to a unicameral system with not more than 12 members. It goes to illustrate that frugality or promises of guarding the public coffers is but vacuous when lawmakers are tasked to putting their mouths where their money is, so to speak.

With a bicameral system comprised of 27 members, quality legislation becomes a thing of the past so effectively supplanted by shortsighted measures. Most fearsome is the eventual strapping of these isles with more than its share of statutory mandates that at best, encourages decisions by litigation on every point of disagreement. Be that as it may, lawmakers aren’t immune to accountability of public funds and no one should find the impending ocular review of expenditures a dreadful thing if all are true to meeting the statutory requirements of a public purpose. Si Yuus Maase`!