Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos, when he was acting governor on Friday, urged the House of Representatives and the Senate to ensure \u201cspecificity and accountability\u201d in their future bills as he signed \u201cwith reservations\u201d a bill appropriating and reprogramming some $572,000 in Rota, Saipan, and Tinian funds.<\/p>\n
Inos signed \u201cwith reservations\u201d House Bill 17-83, House Draft 2, Senate Draft 3 into Public Law 17-44, a copy of which was obtained only yesterday.<\/p>\n
Gov. Benigno R. Fitial has been back on island since Sunday.<\/p>\n
Inos cited, as an example, the bill\u2019s Section 3, which appropriates $100,000 from Rota\u2019s Solid Waste Revolving Account 2083 to three programs and activities, including buying a landfill equipment for $60,000, heavy equipment parts for $20,000 and fuel and lubrication for $20,000. The bill says this amount may be reprogrammed by the Rota mayor \u201cfor any other purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inos said Section 3 \u201cseemingly aims\u201d to implement the intent of the bill, but \u201cit then allows for reprogramming for any other purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an indirect way of appropriating funds for general government operations at the discretion of the expenditure authority. Any unauthorized reprogramming should have been in accordance with the intent of the legislation,\u201d said Inos, a former Finance secretary.<\/p>\n
Senate President Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota), when asked for comment, said the legislation could have been worded more appropriately, adding that the appropriated money will be used for landfill operations only.<\/p>\n
The then acting governor also said Section 2 of the bill re-appropriates funds for \u201cvarious projects\u201d throughout Precinct 5.<\/p>\n
Rep. Frederick P. Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan), from Precinct 5, is the author of the bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe language is broad and leaves much to be guessed as to which \u2018various projects\u2019 will be implemented. I urge the Legislature to clearly identify projects in future legislation of this type,\u201d Inos told the Senate president and House Speaker Eli Cabrera (R-Saipan).<\/p>\n
Section of the bill is re-appropriation of $107,000 from Business Account 3750D originally for a Tangantangan Road project and $15,000 from Business Account 3750B initially for the rehabilitation of Kagman II baseball field, to go towards \u201cvarious projects\u201d in Precinct 5 under the expenditure authority of the Department of Public Works secretary.<\/p>\n
Inos did not cite concern on the fourth and last section of the bill, which appropriates $350,000 from Tinian\u2019s Solid Waste Revolving Account 2084, for the purchase of a $200,000 landfill compactor and the purchase of a $150,000 medium-wheeled loader under the expenditure authority of the Tinian mayor.<\/p>\n
Unlike Section 3, this last section of the bill allows the Tinian mayor to reprogram the funds \u201cfor landfill operation purposes only.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI approve this measure with concerns and urge the legislature to ensure more specificity and accountability in future legislation,\u201d Inos said in his message to the presiding officers of the Legislature. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos, when he was acting governor on Friday, urged the House of Representatives and the Senate to ensure \u201cspecificity and accountability\u201d in their future bills as he signed \u201cwith reservations\u201d a bill appropriating and reprogramming some $572,000 in Rota, Saipan, and Tinian funds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}