{"id":19114,"date":"2011-09-28T02:12:23","date_gmt":"2011-09-28T02:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspaper.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=19114"},"modified":"2011-09-28T02:12:23","modified_gmt":"2011-09-28T02:12:23","slug":"after-problematic-budgets-passage-comes-raising-government-revenues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/after-problematic-budgets-passage-comes-raising-government-revenues\/","title":{"rendered":"After ‘problematic’ budget’s passage comes raising government revenues"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Haidee V. Eugenio
\nReporter<\/div>\n

With a \u201cproblematic\u201d $102-million budget bill now law, the Fitial administration and the Legislature are now setting their sights on raising government revenue to restore 80 hours biweekly and provide better and more public services and to prolong the lifespan of the NMI Retirement Fund.<\/p>\n

While the House leadership has a local casino bill now on the governor’s desk, the Fitial administration has yet to act on it. The 40-day period to act on the bill will lapse in early October; otherwise, the bill automatically becomes law without the governor’s signature.<\/p>\n

Rep. Ray Basa (Cov-Saipan) said a new conference committee has been formed to break the House and Senate deadlock on his House Bill 17-163, which seeks to create a tax rate for foreign corporations earning income from outside the CNMI.<\/p>\n

The House rejected the Senate’s amendments, prompting House Speaker Eli Cabrera (R-Saipan) and Senate President Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota) to appoint conferees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something new that we really have to look into,\u201d Basa said.<\/p>\n

Senate President Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota) said the Senate also would like to see this foreign corporation bill pass both houses. His appointed conferees are led by Sen. Jovita Taimanao (Ind-Rota), along with Senate floor leader Pete Reyes (R-Saipan), and Sen. Henry San Nicolas (Cov-Saipan).<\/p>\n

Manglona said the Legislature should also put to a vote the issue of whether to maintain or repeal Article 12 of the NMI Constitution, which restricts land ownership to people of Northern Marianas descent.<\/p>\n

Press secretary Angel Demapan said the Fitial administration’s priority \u201cwill be focused on working with the Legislature on the passage of revenue-generating bills.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout such additional revenues, the government will not be able to restore work hours back to 80 nor will it be able to guarantee timely payment of wages,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos said Monday that the administration was expecting the Senate to pass House Bill 17-179 simultaneously with the budget bill since the Legislature cut the Marianas Visitors Authority’s operational budget by 56 percent.<\/p>\n

Manglona said the Senate will hold a session on Monday, and HB 17-179 will be acted on.<\/p>\n

The bill seeks to charge passengers from non-U.S. destinations a new $15 \u201ctravel promotion fee,\u201d collections from which will supplement MVA’s budget.<\/p>\n

House floor leader George Camacho (Ind-Saipan), author of HB 17-179, reiterated the need to pass this tourism incentive bill. \u201cThis bill will restore MVA’s budget as well as stimulate the economy in the private sector,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rep. Teresita Santos (Ind-Rota) said the primary focus should be tourism enhancement \u201cwhich should be an all-out concerted effort by all three senatorial districts and in close collaboration with the Marianas Visitors Authority, including a review of Article 12; whether to retain or repeal in its entirety, putting the issue to rest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Ray Tebuteb (R-Saipan) and Rep. Ray Yumul (R-Saipan) said the Legislature should prioritize helping the NMI Retirement Fund.<\/p>\n

Yumul said the Legislature should also work on the issues that Inos pointed out in the budget law, including funding for the Office of the Public Auditor and MVA.<\/p>\n

Cabrera, for his part, said there’s a revenue-generating bill that’s already on the governor’s desk, referring to Rep. Stanley Torres’ (Ind-Saipan) bill legalizing casino gambling on Saipan.<\/p>\n

The press secretary said there’s \u201cno decision at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Fred Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan) said there should be a short-term and long-term goal \u201cof which sustainability would be the mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Trenton Conner (R-Tinian) cited the issues brought up during the economic summit months ago, specifically those in the \u201c10-point plan\u201d as well as retirement bill, the MVA bill, and Article 12 initiative.<\/p>\n

The House and Senate passed a fiscal year 2012 budget bill that Inos, when he was acting governor on Monday, signed into law despite 12 \u201cproblematic provisions\u201d to avoid another partial government shutdown.<\/p>\n

Inos said the administration was \u201cforced\u201d to approve a bill that \u201ccould have been drafted with more care, precision, and fairness\u201d had lawmakers not waited for the \u201c11th hour\u201d to tackle the budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Haidee V. Eugenio Reporter With a \u201cproblematic\u201d $102-million budget bill now law, the Fitial…<\/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-19114","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\/19114","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=19114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}