{"id":51520,"date":"2000-05-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2000-05-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/95cf5a66-1dfb-11e4-aedf-250bc8c9958e"},"modified":"2000-05-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2000-05-15T00:00:00","slug":"95cf5a7a-1dfb-11e4-aedf-250bc8c9958e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/95cf5a7a-1dfb-11e4-aedf-250bc8c9958e\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Ombudsman welcomes\nIG inquiry on hiring practices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The United States Labor Ombudsman Office yesterday welcomed the proposed investigation into the agency&#8217;s alleged employment of a permanent resident alien convicted of violating CNMI laws on the hiring of illegal foreign workers.<\/p>\n<p>Federal Ombudsman Pamela Brown was reacting on claims by CNMI House Speaker Benigno R. Fitial that Ombudsman Office of the interior department recently hired a U.S. resident who was previously found by courts of law guilty of several felonies.<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Brown expressed confidence that the investigation will only prove that the Ombudsman Office has observed all legal and moral requirements in all its hiring practices.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I welcome such an investigation which would clearly show that all contracts with service providers were obvious choices, awarded to those who demonstrated superior qualifications and uncompromising character,&#8221; she stressed.<\/p>\n<p>In a recent letter, Mr. Fitial has requested U.S. Inspector General Earl Devaney to investigate the hiring practices of the Federal Ombudsman&#8217;s Office in the Northern Marianas.<\/p>\n<p>The Speaker said the Ombudsman&#8217;s employment of the alleged NMI labor law violator casts doubt on the office&#8217;s integrity, since it was primarily established to provide guidance and information for both employers and their workers.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Fitial reminded the Ombudsman that its role is to promote and improve compliance to both federal and local labor laws. &#8220;Having a convicted abuser of these laws creates a real perception problem for this agency.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He was referring to the Ombudsman&#8217;s employment of Ming Kirk, a  resident alien who was convicted of various counts of hiring illegal aliens to work for a company she was affiliated to prior to her conviction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United States Labor Ombudsman Office yesterday welcomed the proposed investigation into the agency&#8217;s alleged employment of a permanent resident alien convicted of violating CNMI laws on the hiring of illegal foreign workers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51520","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}