There is no more money in the repatriation program, according to former Judge Timothy H. Bellas, who is chairman of the Garment Oversight Board.<\/p>\n
Bellas submitted yesterday in federal court a breakdown of how GOB spent since November 2003 the $356,798 that was allotted as repatriation fund for garment workers under an agreement that settled the class-action lawsuit against the CNMI garment industry.<\/p>\n
Bellas said that, from November 2003 to Jan. 26, 2006, GOB issued repatriation payments to 353 workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder the original program, they gave us 436 names. We were not able to contact 292 of them for various reasons,\u201d the former judge told the Saipan Tribune after yesterday\u2019s hearing at the U.S. District Court for the NMI.<\/p>\n
He explained that, of the 436 names, only 144 workers received payments in the total amount of $134,551.72.<\/p>\n
Bellas said they could not contact or locate 108 \u201cbecause the information provided was no good\u201d while five workers indicated that they worked more than two years therefore they\u2019re not eligible under the program.<\/p>\n
Two were still working on Saipan. For the 61 others, the letters were returned as non-deliverable and they have no other contact information. There were no responses at all to the letters sent to 116 workers.<\/p>\n
The GOB chairman said that, of the 297 workers who came to them, 209 received payments in the total amount of $222,246.28.<\/p>\n
He said they could not contact or locate the 88 workers based on the information provided.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe asked for copies of their passport. We got a staff in Chinese so now there\u2019s much a lower percentage in the number of people we can\u2019t contact. It\u2019s less than 30 percent that we can\u2019t contact. But even then we have 209 people and we gave them $222,246.28,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Bellas said those whom they can\u2019t contact were removed from the list.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can come back, if we have money and we could say, fine you\u2019re eligible, we give it to you. But what I am trying to say is we have to move on down the list,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Under the $20-million settlement, some $4 million would go to GOB\u2019s monitoring program. Of $4million, GOB was supposed to get $400,000 or 10 percent. <\/p>\n
Bellas said they instead got over $350,000 because they did not get the full money in the beginning since two factories did not contribute to the settlement funds.<\/p>\n
Aside from Bellas, GOB is composed of two other retired judges Cruz Reynoso and Richard P. Guy. The board was set up pursuant to the settlement to oversee the monitoring program of the garment industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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