Gov. Ralph DLG Torres noted that no previous administration has paid more land compensation judgments as the current administration has in the history of the CNMI.<\/p>\n
\u201c[We] have paid the most land compensation payments in history. We have taken care of all the interest-bearing accounts. I know that we have paid all of our dues as much as we can. No administration has ever paid more land compensations than what we are paying today,\u201d he told Saipan Tribune yesterday.<\/p>\n
Torres gave the statement in response to criticism from Superior Court Associate Judge Kenneth L. Govendo, who noted the CNMI\u2019s knack for taking land from residents and not compensating them for it.<\/p>\n
In some cases, the CNMI \u201csimply stalls for years, dragging its feet before paying it,\u201d said Govendo.<\/p>\n
A Torres administration statement said that the administration has made it a \u201cfinancial priority\u201d to address \u201clongstanding obligations and judgments against the government.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGovernor Torres has been cognizant of the fact that these financial liabilities are an injustice to the many landowners who waited years for what is rightfully owed them,\u201d said the statement, noting that the administration reduced the CNMI\u2019s deficit by more than $23 million within Torres\u2019 first year in office\u2014a 10-percent reduction overall.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last time payouts to claimants were made was Aug. 22, 2013, when a total of $171,931.72 was paid to eight private landowners. That reduction has since grown, with large and small judgments now being paid off and compensation given to claimants,\u201d the statement added.<\/p>\n
Citing a 2017 Government Accountability Office report on the public debt of U.S. territories, the CNMI has made a large dent on its $251.7-million public debt in fiscal year 2005, which now stands at $144.7 million in fiscal year 2015.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a span of 10 years, the CNMI has effectuated a decrease in its public debt of almost half\u201442.5 percent. This figure also doesn\u2019t include the governor and the Legislature\u2019s commitment to addressing several longstanding government obligations such as land compensation and settlements over the last two years, which amount to an additional decrease in the debt by about $50 million,\u201d noted the administration statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese numbers outline the CNMI\u2019s economic growth in the past decade, particularly since 2015,\u201d said the statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres noted that no previous administration has paid more land compensation judgments…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,7100,8949,38],"class_list":["post-275712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-government-accountability-office","tag-governor-torres","tag-saipan-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275712","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\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}