{"id":246849,"date":"2017-02-21T06:00:41","date_gmt":"2017-02-20T20:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=246849"},"modified":"2017-02-21T06:00:41","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T20:00:41","slug":"gao-look-government-debt-marianas-us-territories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/gao-look-government-debt-marianas-us-territories\/","title":{"rendered":"GAO to look at government debt in Marianas, US territories"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, D.C.<\/strong>\u2014In a move to avoid any future financial crisis the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, is beginning a review of public debt in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and other U.S. insular areas. The review is required by PROMESA, legislation enacted last year to address the debt crisis in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

\u201cGAO will report on how much each insular government owes and on their ability to pay their debt,\u201d said Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP). \u201cIt will be an objective review of the debt situation that the public in the Marianas and other insular areas can rely on.\u201d<\/p>\n

PROMESA, the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act, addressed Puerto Rico\u2019s inability to meet its bond obligations by setting up an oversight board with broad powers over government finances. Puerto Rico owed some $77 billion at the time the law was enacted.<\/p>\n

Early drafts of PROMESA could have applied generally to all the U.S. insular areas, but Sablan worked to limit the law to Puerto Rico alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn drafting PROMESA we had to be very careful to keep out any breach of local self-government enshrined in the Marianas Covenant,\u201d said Sablan. \u201cAnd we were successful, I think, at protecting the Covenant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did include the one provision, however, that requires a report to Congress on debt held by insular governments. We want to avoid a situation in which the Marianas or any other insular area faces the kind of fiscal crisis that we see right now in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

\u201cGAO has already begun data collection in the Marianas to contribute to the PROMESA report and is working well with the Commonwealth government, I understand,\u201d Sablan added.<\/p>\n

PROMESA requires the Government Accountability Office to report to Congress on territorial debt by June 30, 2017, and every two years thereafter. <\/p>\n

On Feb. 8, Susan J. Irving, director of Strategic Issues at GAO, wrote to Sablan laying out the scope of the first report.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will review each territory\u2019s single audit reports for the last 10 years (FY2005-2015),\u201d Irving said, \u201cand analyze bond prospectuses for each territory\u2019s debt issuances for the same period.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition, we will use internal controls criteria to assess whether the territories have sufficient data and information to determine their ability to repay their public debt and take notice of potential future debt crises.\u201d<\/p>\n

Irving spelled out four objectives that align with the requirements of PROMESA: <\/p>\n

1. Examine trends in public debt and its composition between fiscal years 2005-2015 and future public debt projections.
\n2. Examine trends in revenue and its composition between fiscal years 2005-2015 and future revenue projections.
\n3. Report on the drivers of public debt and their relative impact, including the effects of federal and territorial laws, mandates, rules, and regulations.
\n4. Review the ability of each territory to repay its public debt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am hopeful that the GAO study will give Congress\u2014and, just as importantly, the public and local leaders in the Marianas\u2014an accurate picture of the Commonwealth\u2019s debt and the risks it may pose,\u201d Sablan said. \u201cI am also looking forward to ideas about what can be done to ensure that the local government can continue to provide essential services to our residents and can avoid the kind of debt crisis that the government of Puerto Rico is still facing.\u201d (PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, D.C.\u2014In a move to avoid any future financial crisis the Government Accountability Office, the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12388,10932,320,1589],"class_list":["post-246849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-promesa","tag-puerto-rico-oversight","tag-us","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246849","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\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}