Gov. Ralph DLG Torres is ready to answer any question from the two House panels established to conduct an oversight on his spending, as well as expenditures based on federal assistance and disaster-related funding.<\/p>\n
At the news briefing yesterday, the governor expressed confidence that his record of expenditures will hold amid the investigations.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll my expenditures are on public record so whatever they want to ask questions and whatever they find, I\u2019m here.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at this, I have discretions on how funds are being used. So, I am confident that the expenditures that was done, was according to the law, and in terms of the federal funds in regards to this pandemic, I am absolutely happy that they\u2019re looking into that,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Early Monday, the House Special Committee on Fiscal Review of Executive Expenditures, formed to continue the oversight on all spending made by Torres, met to discuss subpoenaing agencies involved in some spending. Prior to this, last month, the House Special Committee on Federal Assistance and Disaster Related Funding begun its review of documents related to awarded contracts and government overtime payments related to the CNMI\u2019s COVID-19 emergency response. <\/p>\n
The governor also defended all the departments, Cabinet members, and first-responders\u2014even businesses, for taking the helm and doing the work, when the world first heard about the pandemic and left many people afraid, especially on the island.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, are we safe here, or are we not? At the time that we\u2019ve got the emergency, I think we should congratulate and thank those companies that stepped up and were able to provide us the necessary equipment, supplies, that no other country no other state can claim.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cUp to today you still have other states, other territories that are having issues. We don\u2019t have issues on supplies, we don\u2019t have issues on equipment. We have our alternate care sites ready to go. We wish we would never use them. During those times, we need to do what we need to do to provide health care, and to provide our public health. And we did exactly that,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Torres also highlighted the local government working with Federal Emergency Management Agency partners, as well as where the CNMI currently stands in the pandemic, which is, at just 33 cases.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have the authority to do their investigation, but at the end of the day, again, are we better off today in our health than any other states or territories? I\u2019m confident that everyone here would answer that question, \u201cYes, we are safe. We feel safe,\u201d Torres said, as he acknowledging the legislative body\u2019s authority to conduct the oversight.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that that we feel safe, now they\u2019re going around [to do] some investigation. So, whatever it is, we\u2019re here to answer any questions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres is ready to answer any question from the two House panels…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":324915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-326447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326447","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=326447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}