The House of Representatives\u2019 minority bloc has asked House Gaming Committee chair Ralph Yumul (R-Saipan) to subpoena Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) to ask it about the community benefit fund that it is supposed to underwrite.<\/p>\n
Finding no records of disbursements of the community benefit fund aside from the $1.2 million that\u2019s been distributed to four programs, the minority has asked Yumul to consider issuing a subpoena to the sole casino license holder on Saipan.<\/p>\n
Rep. Tina Sablan (Ind-Saipan), in an interview, said that the records that they have gathered from an Open Government Act request to the Office of the Governor show that the Governor\u2019s Office can account for only about $1.2 million in total for four different programs that received these funds back in 2018, but that there is nothing else in the record to show any other distributions of funds. The minority formally submitted the documents they received through their OGA request to the House of Representatives at the session last Thursday.<\/p>\n
Under the Casino License Agreement, IPI was required to contribute $10 million to the community benefit fund in January 2018, $10 million in June 2018, and another $20 million in October 2019, and every year after that. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have no other records other than the disbursements of $1.2 million,\u201d Sablan said. \u201cWhat that means is that the Governor\u2019s Office cannot account for $38.8 million, and we did verify with his legal counsel [that] these are all\u2026they have. That was all he could say at that point. What we\u2019ve asked the Gaming Committee chairman to consider doing is to issue a subpoena to IPI to seek their records in terms of how these community benefit funds are actually being managed.\u201d<\/p>\n
She further stated that the Gaming Committee, like any standing committee of the House, has powers to issue a subpoena to conduct oversight and legislative investigations, and that IPI, under the Casino Commission\u2019s regulations, is obligated to respond to legislative oversight requests.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the real the bottom line question is, where\u2019s the money, and why hasn\u2019t the Governor\u2019s Office done very much at all based on the record to enforce that obligation?\u201d Sablan asked. \u201cIf there is some funding that really should be a public benefit, especially if it\u2019s something like $38.8 million, you need to hold on to that promise, and ensure that these benefits are getting out to people, especially at a time like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the Casino License Agreement, the community benefit fund can be used for projects that could benefit health care, public education, retirement benefits, and infrastructure. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The House of Representatives\u2019 minority bloc has asked House Gaming Committee chair Ralph Yumul (R-Saipan)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[23745,12497],"class_list":["post-321480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-house-gaming","tag-ipi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321480","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\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}