The two recent disasters that gripped the CNMI are expected to affect the government\u2019s projected budget, but the impact in dollar terms has yet to be determined.<\/p>\n
In early July, a breakage in a submarine cable effectively disconnected Saipan from the rest of the world, affecting mobile communications and Internet infrastructure throughout the island.<\/p>\n
Local businesses relying heavily on online payments and ordering suffered, as well as numerous companies that use the Internet for their operations.<\/p>\n
A state of significant disaster was eventually declared for Saipan.<\/p>\n
On Aug. 2, Typhoon Soudelor slammed into Saipan as a \u201csuper typhoon,\u201d leaving widespread damage. President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency for the CNMI on Aug. 6.<\/p>\n
Until today, a month after Soudelor, recovery efforts and relief operations continue.<\/p>\n
Review<\/strong><\/p>\n House Speaker Joseph P. Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan) said the CNMI Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Finance will be reviewing the cash flow for the government in the aftermath of the disaster.<\/p>\n A budget of $145 million is being proposed for the CNMI government for fiscal year 2016. It is yet to be ratified by the Legislature.<\/p>\n Most lawmakers are saying that the disaster will indeed impact the budget projection.<\/p>\n In light of this impact, Deleon Guerrero said Gov. Eloy S. Inos has \u201ctools\u201d to prevent \u201cover-expenditure.\u201d<\/p>\n Deleon Guerrero said if the budget projections do not meet the $145 million by a certain percentage by the end of September, the governor has the authority to cut down allotments for the CNMI departments.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it exceeds or does not meet the projections by 3 percent, the governor can use this authority,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Deleon Guerrero said the financial impacts have yet to be determined because information such as how many businesses have been affected, for how long, and at what costs, remain unknown.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do not know yet. But there are protection built in to our law,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is how you manage the money coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The two recent disasters that gripped the CNMI are expected to affect the government\u2019s projected…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[20,26,152,6333],"class_list":["post-209565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-budget","tag-cnmi","tag-deleon-guerrero","tag-typhoon-soudelor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209565","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=209565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}