The Department of Finance is looking at possibly floating a bond before the end of the year.<\/p>\n
The bond rating for the CNMI government has yet to be released but the department is looking to float the bond soon, according to Finance Secretary David Atalig last Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Atalig told Saipan Tribune that, as of publication, his office has yet to receive the bond rating for the Commonwealth government.<\/p>\n
A bond rating is a rating from independent agencies\u2014in this case from Moody\u2019s Investor Service\u2014that measures the financial capability of the Commonwealth government to issue a bond and its ability to make interest payments and repay the principal of the bond.<\/p>\n
Once the ratings have been received, Atalig explained, it goes out to the government\u2019s bond consultants as well as its bond issuers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be meeting with investors to hopefully sell our debt, our bond, and hopefully\u2026that would be accomplished\u2026by mid-December 2019,\u201d he said in an separate interview last weekend.<\/p>\n
In an earlier statement, Atalig said that the CNMI government would be floating a bond of up to $65 million strictly for pension benefits.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are authorized up to $300 million, however, I only want to float what I need,\u201d he had said.<\/p>\n
He noted that the $65 million would be just enough to pay for the $17.6 million Alternative Payment of a Greater Amount payments for fiscal year 2017 and $43 million for fiscal year 2020 minimum payments to the Settlement Fund.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis allows us to pay them and it allows us to use revenues coming in for the fiscal year to take care of [other] obligations that we\u2019ve had. The goal is to retire the deficit from the last two fiscal years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the bond that we get and, hopefully, with the additional economic activities\u2014we ended austerity so people have more money in their pockets to spend\u2014hopefully all of this will generate more activity in our island community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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