Members of the Legislature will not be attending a \u201cfamiliarization\u201d trip to an integrated resort in Singapore.<\/p>\n
Senate President Victor C. Hocog (Ind-Rota) said nobody from the Senate will attend. He did advise those who are interested to shoulder their own expenses, should they choose to attend the trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of their schedules will not permit them to attend,\u201d Hocog said.<\/p>\n
Hocog said he does see the advantage of attending a trip to an integrated resort because there never has been one on the CNMI.<\/p>\n
But to remove questions on ethics, Hocog said lawmakers must make sure the expenses will come out of their own accounts.<\/p>\n
Hocog confirmed that the invitation was extended to CNMI lawmakers for the trip, which is scheduled today until Wednesday next week.<\/p>\n
He said Best Sunshine International, Ltd. did not directly extend the invitation. \u201cBut I wish Best Sunshine will involve more of our community members, so they can see what an integrated resort looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n
House Speaker Joseph P. Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan) also said there was an invitation, but nobody from the House of Representatives will be attending.<\/p>\n
The House of Representatives yesterday held a session on Tinian, which will be followed by a public hearing on the budget of the Tinian Mayor\u2019s Office today.<\/p>\n
Rep. Blas Jonathan \u201cBJ\u201d Attao (Ind-Saipan) said he did not get the invitation directly but was informed about it by another colleague.<\/p>\n
Rep. Edwin K. Propst (Ind-Saipan) posted a status on his social media page saying that a colleague also invited him to attend the trip. He dismissed the invitation and stated that he hopes \u201cit is a joke.\u201d<\/p>\n
Familiarization trip<\/strong><\/p>\n John Gonzales, talk show host and event organizer for the Singapore trip, confirmed that he did extend the invitation to CNMI leaders on Capital Hill.<\/p>\n In an interview, he said he has not gotten any response yet from CNMI officials.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a purely educational and familiarization trip. Nothing more, nothing less,\u201d Gonzales said.<\/p>\n He said he discussed the trip with Best Sunshine, in which the latter agreed to pitch in.<\/p>\n Gonzales said his company and BSI agreed to conduct the familiarization and educational trip and extend it to the CNMI community by having a select group of residents join the tour.<\/p>\n He said parts of the tour are trips to Marina Bay Sands and Resort World Sentosa, an integrated resort in Singapore with casino facilities.<\/p>\n The two resorts are arguably the \u201cworld\u2019s premier integrated resorts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n OPA warning<\/strong><\/p>\n The Office of the Public Auditor, meanwhile, released an advisory opinion answering a query on the CNMI Government Ethics Code Act of 1992.<\/p>\n The OPA said on June 2, it received a request for the advisory opinion.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact pattern as presented to OPA involves an invitation by a person either \u2018contracted by or funded by\u2019 a large corporate entity that does business in the CNMI in an emerging field that is heavily regulated by both statute and administrative regulation,\u201d the OPA said.<\/p>\n According to the inquiry, \u201cthis invitation was extended to the member of the CNMI Legislature, both House and Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n This invitation was to \u201cjoin [the inviting person] and his group to go to Singapore to explore integrated resorts, their makeup, operation, and benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n The OPA said \u201cthe facts presented would constitute clear and unambiguous violation of the Ethics Act by any member of the Legislature that accepted the invitation as proffered.\u201d<\/p>\n The OPA cited CNMI law stating that \u201ca public official shall not solicit or accept anything of value, or the promise of anything of value, from a person regulated by the government entity that the public official serves.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn conclusion, it is the opinion of OPA that acceptance of the invitation as described would constitute a violation of the Ethics Act and expose any persons so accepting to potential criminal and civil liability,\u201d the OPA advisory said.<\/p>\n George Hasselback, director of investigations, investigations division of the OPA signed the advisory opinion. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Members of the Legislature will not be attending a \u201cfamiliarization\u201d trip to an integrated resort…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[1707,26,136,745],"class_list":["post-203573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-best-sunshine-international","tag-cnmi","tag-opa","tag-singapore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203573","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\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}