Rep. Tina Sablan (D-Saipan) is urging Attorney General Edward Manibusan to pursue the recovery of public funds that have been spent on government-funded first-class travel, which she described as illegal. <\/p>\n
At the House of Representatives session Wednesday, members of the minority weighed in on the Office of the Public Auditor\u2019s draft report on government travel expenditures, noting a 27% increase among autonomous agencies, and 152% for the Executive Branch, between 2015 and 2018. <\/p>\n
OPA also recommended the adoption of a uniform travel policy for the CNMI, but stressed that purchases of first-class, business-class, or any other premium class designation is illegal and is a clear violation of the Commonwealth law. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is quite distressing, depressing, disappointing. \u2026What suddenly happened that demanded an increase in the Executive Branch of 152%?\u201d asked Rep. Edwin K. Propst (D-Saipan). \u201cWe have Commonwealth law that prohibits first class travel, business travel, premium cost designation, but it\u2019s been violated, multiple times, and with impunity.\u201d <\/p>\n
Propst also criticized Manibusan\u2019s silence on the matter. \u201cHow does he not make a comment on all of this? We have records of all the first-class travel that have been made multiple times, not just by government officials but by nongovernment officials who have traveled on taxpayer dime.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the very least, there\u2019s $1,000 fine per infraction. Yet we have not heard so much as a comment from the attorney general as to whether this is acceptable or not. Just one of our many laws that seem to be ignored and dismissed. We know the abuse that has happened with first-class travel and other things, but again, it doesn\u2019t seem to really go anywhere,\u201d Propst said.<\/p>\n
Uniform travel policy<\/strong> \u201cWe have already enacted laws that require a uniform policy, and we have also enacted laws that contradict that policy of uniformity by allowing certain agencies to adopt their own travel rules. \u2026I think that we should look closely at the ramifications of these conflicts and the ramifications of not having a uniform policy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Sablan noted that there are zero travel regulations in the books, and that the abuses are now documented in an OPA audit, and are coming to light in the investigations the Legislature is doing. \u201cWe in the Legislature absolutely have a role to play in reining in waste and abuse and ensuring that this government is exercising fiscal prudence, and consistently with the law and travel and all expenditures.\u201d <\/p>\n According to Sablan, with discrepancies and outright violations of law, including illegal government-funded first-class travel, it is absolutely within the legislators\u2019 jurisdiction to exercise legislative oversight and require accountability of both Finance and the attorney general to control the expenditures of public funds and ensure compliance with public laws. <\/p>\n With the need for a uniform travel policy highlighted, it was also mentioned during the session that the legislators will work with, and assist the Department on Finance should help be needed to put together the uniform policy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rep. Tina Sablan (D-Saipan) is urging Attorney General Edward Manibusan to pursue the recovery of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":327047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[86],"class_list":["post-327366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-oag"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327366","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=327366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAt the session, Sablan said that she does not agree that the Legislature has no role to play in ensuring that the government adopts a uniform travel policy. OPA recommended for lawmakers to review the current laws and suggested that the conflicts be addressed. <\/p>\n