Acting public auditor Michael Pai was described as a man of high integrity and more than qualified to merit a second term at the helm of the Office of the Public Auditor during Friday\u2019s Senate Committee on Executive Appointment and Governmental Investigation public hearing.<\/p>\n
Department of Public Lands Secretary Pedro A. Tenorio, who represented Gov. Eloy S. Inos at the proceedings, said the Commonwealth is better served having Pai remain as public auditor because he already has immeasurable experience in the job.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important asset of Mr. Pai\u2026is the fact that he\u2019s occupied that position for six years, having been nominated and confirmed in 2008. Mr. Pai is not new to the position. Over the last six years he has performed his responsibilities with commitment, honor, and transparency. Gov. Inos is totally confident that Mr. Pai will continue his excellent record of managing the Office of the Public Auditor if again confirmed by the Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tenorio said he\u2019s personally known Pai for a very long time. He said Pai migrated to Saipan from Hawaii in 1983 and met his wife and raised his family here.<\/p>\n
\u201cI find him as a genuine and humble person. He has a very calm personality, easy to talk to, an excellent listener, and respectful to all. I\u2019ve never heard of anyone say anything negative about him,\u201d Tenorio said.<\/p>\n
Department of Public Safety Commissioner James C. Deleon Guerrero said Pai is a person of great integrity and urged the Senate to reconfirm him. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a person that currently enjoys significant amount of community support and is a person who was one of the very first agency heads who I had the opportunity to work with during my early term as police commissioner. There are a lot of things currently going on and I believe that going forward\u2014just like any other project that the government is embarking\u2014it is important that there\u2019s continuity. We need people with integrity in certain posts and Mr. Pai is a person with great integrity and surely deserves another term as public auditor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Northern Marianas Technical Institute CEO Agnes McPhetres also vouched for Pai\u2019s integrity at the hearing.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot be a Rotarian without high integrity\u2026 Mr. Pai has the highest virtue of integrity and that\u2019s what you need in this type of position. He is also an individual that can communicate with people. I hope this committee will not take a long time to reconfirm him,\u201d said McPhetres, who said she got to know Pai very well when the two were with the Rotary Club of Saipan.<\/p>\n
OPA legal counsel and director of investigations George Hasselback, who spoke as a community member, said he has a unique insight into how Pai conducts himself as public auditor. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had a great deal of experience in the CNMI government who interact with attorneys and interact with lawyers in their day-to-day lives. Unfortunately, sometimes people are tempted to ask lawyers not what their opinions are but they\u2019re tempted to look at that attorney and tell that attorney \u2018I wish to do something. Justify it for me.\u2019 That\u2019s the wrong way to approach attorneys in a lot of circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hasselback said he and Pai interact a lot on a daily basis where Pai asks him and people who work for him to make very difficult decisions on his behalf. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe has never come to me and said, \u2018I wish to do something. Justify it.\u2019 He has come to me and asked me, \u2018What is in the best interest of the people of the Commonwealth? What does the law require? Is it the right thing to do?\u2019 And regardless of my answer, he has respected the opinions that are being given as long as they\u2019re for the best interest of the community, what the law requires, and what\u2019s the right thing to do. That in itself speaks volumes of Mr. Pai\u2019s strength of character and commitment to the people.\u201d<\/p>\n
For his part, Pai is just relieved that the Senate EAGI committee has wrapped up its public hearing on his reappointment as public auditor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always considered, even during my first term, that the appointment to serve as the CNMI\u2019s public auditor is really an honor and to have people hold you in that regard where they think you\u2019re the person to be the public auditor, I\u2019m very grateful for that. Now that this hearing is over I feel a sense of relief that another step toward the reconfirmation process is completed. We\u2019ll just have to stay the course, finish the process, and hopefully I\u2019ll be confirmed for a second term.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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