{"id":302762,"date":"2019-07-04T06:00:53","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T20:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=302762"},"modified":"2019-07-04T06:00:53","modified_gmt":"2019-07-03T20:00:53","slug":"attao-to-change-bill-language-from-loc-to-loan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/attao-to-change-bill-language-from-loc-to-loan\/","title":{"rendered":"Attao to change bill language from \u2018LOC\u2019 to \u2018loan\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the Marianas Public Land Trust agreeing to lend $15 million to the Torres administration, House Speaker Blas Jonathan Attao (R-Saipan) will be amending the bill related to the matter that he previously introduced to refer to the amount as a \u201cloan\u201d instead of a \u201cline of credit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Attao<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In an interview Tuesday, Attao said they are preparing to substitute the language in his House Bill 21-44 to change the term \u201cline of credit\u201d to reflect what the MPLT is more comfortable with.<\/p>\n

Attao said the substitute language will be discussed during the House session next week.<\/p>\n

The MPLT trustees established that they would use the term \u201cloan\u201d instead of \u201cline of credit\u201d and set the interest rate at 7.5 percent, to be paid in five years.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Edward Manibusan has issued an opinion that the amount is considered a public debt and will be paid by withholding the interest income from MPLT, money that they remit annually to the central government\u2019s general fund.<\/p>\n

Attao said the original language in his legislation is \u201cline of credit,\u201d but MPLT decided in the course of their deliberations in the last couple of weeks that it\u2019s better to just make it a straight-up loan, with an interest rate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to go [with]\u2026what is more comfortable for MPLT because, at the end of the day, they are the lending institution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Attao said the legislation itself is only the application process to allow this $15million loan to happen. <\/p>\n

He said he is actually more comfortable with the line of credit \u201cbut MPLT said, \u2018No, we want to give a straight loan and straight up withhold the interest.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

Attao said the MPLT trustees\u2019 fiduciary responsibility is for investment purposes and they don\u2019t have immunity from being sued for these actions. \u201cThey can get sued for these actions. And they are comfortable with this language, to make it a loan and also to withhold the interest,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Attao also introduced last week House Bill 21-63, which would allow the Commonwealth Development Authority to float a special revenue bond to be used to refund general obligation bonds.<\/p>\n

Attao noted that the people of the CNMI have already ratified House Legislative Initiative 17-5, which allows the CNMI government to float a general bond. <\/p>\n

His legislation, he said, will allow other bond opportunities and not just the general bond. <\/p>\n

With the amendment, Attao said it will allow CDA to consider other bond opportunities\u2014ones that are taxable and beneficial to the CNMI government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis amendment is more about allowing [CDA] to [consider] other options\u201d that are more beneficial to the CNMI, he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWith our credit rating now, we have the opportunity to be able to go into different types of bonds. But we need to amend the current statute so that they can open up to other types of bond,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Attao believes that the MPLT loan and the amendment to the bond may get the CNMI out of austerity for the rest of fiscal year 2019. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the Marianas Public Land Trust agreeing to lend $15 million to the Torres administration,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":302763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[19811],"class_list":["post-302762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-loc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302762","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}