Previous Story
Bill to use land lease payment for scholarship backed
|
Posted on Jul 04 2005
The Northern Islands municipality favors the passage of a bill that aims to use land lease payments as scholarship money for indigenous students.
Northern Islands Mayor Valentine Taisakan said in a position paper that he supports the use of the funds for the proposed Northern Marianas Descent Educational Assistance program, as embodied in House Bill 14-330.
However, he said the program should be placed under the CNMI Scholarship Office, and not under the Marianas Public Lands Authority.
“I am a supporter of providing financial support to our students of NMI descent, but I do not support the creation or the establishment of another office duplicating the function of an established scholarship office,” said Taisakan.
The bill, according to Education Committee chair Justo S. Quitugua, aims to tap a portion of the money remitted by MPLA to the Marianas Public Lands Trust for scholarship purposes.
He said the bill, authored by Rep. Janet U. Maratita, aims to grant the scholarship money only to students of CNMI descent.
Quitugua said his committee is still awaiting comments from other agencies such as the Tinian and Rota mayor’s office, Attorney General’s Office, and Department of Finance.
The MPLT had expressed its opposition to two Senate initiatives that aim to use MPLT funds for business and housing loans.
MPLT objected to the passage of Senate Legislative Initiative 14-7, which aims to amend the Constitution to require MPLT to distribute its investment earnings to those of NMI descent; and SLI 14-10, which requires the agency to commit $10 million for housing loans, to be administered by MPLA.
MPLT said SLI 14-7 would be “very costly to administer” as it requires MPLT to ensure an accurate registry of individuals who are of NMI descent every year.
Likewise, it said that distributing the money would result in annual payments to those of NMI descent of very small amounts of money, likely to be about $70 annually.
MPLT also said that MPLA is not the suitable agency to administer a home loan program as proposed in SLI 14-10, noting that it is “is a duplication of efforts and would be unnecessarily costly.”
MPLT is the trustee of land lease payment that is collected by the MPLA.
