{"id":344213,"date":"2021-05-14T06:06:11","date_gmt":"2021-05-13T20:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=344213"},"modified":"2021-05-14T06:06:11","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T20:06:11","slug":"kilili-to-torres-inspector-generals-will-be-watching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/kilili-to-torres-inspector-generals-will-be-watching\/","title":{"rendered":"Kilili to Torres: Inspector generals will be watching"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sablan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) has warned Gov. Ralph DLG Torres that several federal department and agency Inspector Generals will be checking how federal monies such as the $244-million Community Block Grant-Disaster Recovery and monies that he is working to bring in the American Jobs Plan are kept and managed.<\/p>\n

In response to Torres\u2019 announcement last week that he created a new office\u2014Infrastructure and Recovery Program\u2014Sablan said the governor is opening the new office to oversee programs\/monies expected in the not yet introduced American Jobs Plan Act. \u201cI am here working with other members and committees to see that the funds for our many infrastructure needs are funded through that bill,\u201d Sablan said.<\/p>\n

Torres said the creation of the Infrastructure and Recovery Program office aims to streamline the close to a billion dollars of recovery and infrastructure projects in the CNMI. The new office is headed by Marianne Concepcion-Teregeyo. Torres said IRP will especially move forward projects such as with the Northern Marianas College, the Public School System, Commonwealth Healthcare Corp., Commonwealth Utilities Corp., and road projects such as Route 36 and 35.<\/p>\n

In his response in the comment section of an online article about the creation of the new office, Sablan said NMC\u2019s and the PSS\u2019 autonomy are granted in the CNMI Constitution, while CHCC and CUC are independent public corporations. The delegate said these agencies and entities have, by law, immunity from the arbitrary exercise of authority and political independence. \u201cThey have their own procurement rules and regulations that govern their contracting authorities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sablan said that, by \u201cherding\u201d these agencies, potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in construction projects into a more inferior agency that Torres established makes one wonder if the governor\u2019s \u201cnaked intention is to control who gets awarded contracts.\u201d See Gov. Ralph DLG Torres\u2019 response on Page 11<\/p>\n

Sablan said people are no longer blind to Torres\u2019 \u201cself-serving interest in managing the Commonwealth government\u2019s business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDidn\u2019t you learn anything from the execution and service of federal court search warrants upon yourself and some members of your family?\u201d Sablan asked.<\/p>\n

The delegate said government employees who work against the spirit and letter of federal grants could be subjected to charges as well.<\/p>\n

He said the claim that \u201cthe governor told me to do something a certain way\u201d is no defense to violating federal grant conditions.<\/p>\n

Sablan said just as the federal government, the Federal Emergency Management Agency in this case, refused to reimburse the CNMI for overtime costs, the Commonwealth could be in the hook of millions of dollars of expenditures that paid out and are inconsistent with federal grant conditions.<\/p>\n

The delegate asked Torres to allow NMC, PSS, CHCC, and CUC to work on grants that he is working for them. \u201cThey do it better than a new office you are establishing from the scratch,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sablan said he is not working on getting money for these agencies so that Torres can give contracts to his preferred contractors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) has warned Gov. Ralph DLG Torres that several federal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":333106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-344213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344213","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=344213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}