Gov. Benigno R. Fitial has separately summoned board members of the Commonwealth Ports Authority and Commonwealth Development Authority to personally tell them to resign their posts immediately, according to the members.<\/p>\n
Press secretary Charles P. Reyes said the governor merely wants to have the flexibility to implement the needed reforms.<\/p>\n
CPA board member Benigno Fejeran said that Fitial called them to the governor\u2019s office Friday last week \u201cto tell us to tender our courtesy resignation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought that we\u2019d be discussing CPA programs, but he actually had one agenda: he wants us out,\u201d said Fejeran, who is chairman of the CPA board\u2019s committee on finance.<\/p>\n
Dela Cruz, who represents Tinian, said that, once gathered inside Fitial\u2019s office, the governor told them point blank: \u201cLet\u2019s make this short. I want you to resign.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Fejeran and Dela Cruz, as well as other members, are appointees of former Gov. Juan N. Babauta.<\/p>\n
Dela Cruz said that, during the meeting, he told the governor that \u201cpolitics is not above the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBy law, we are to serve out our terms unless we are removed for cause and following a due process. What\u2019s the cause? Political? Politics is not above the law,\u201d said Dela Cruz.<\/p>\n
Fejeran said that he reminded the governor that CPA \u201cis the top performing agency\u201d in the CNMI government.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe [governor] can review the performance of CPA and see that, during our term, we did good,\u201d said Fejeran.<\/p>\n
Fejeran, a close supporter of Babauta, said that, although he does not agree with Fitial\u2019s reasoning, he would respect the governor\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him I can understand that you want your people in. Don\u2019t worry, I\u2019m going to submit my courtesy resignation soon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Dela Cruz said the governor should have appreciated the fact that \u201cgood economics doesn\u2019t just happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s people who make it happen. Granted that you have good programs, but if you don\u2019t have that good combination of people, you won\u2019t make it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Dela Cruz said the CPA board right now has that good combination of people.<\/p>\n
\u201cCPA\u2019s good performance despite the crisis didn\u2019t just happen. People at CPA made it happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
CDA board members\u2019 heads too<\/p>\n
CDA board chair Tom Glenn A. Quitugua said that Fitial had also called them up to Capitol Hill \u201cnot to inquire about housing and CDA but to tell us to resign.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRight off the bat, he told us that he wants us to submit our courtesy resignation. Usually when you come up there, you\u2019d expect that you\u2019d be asked about housing and CDA issues, but we didn\u2019t talk anything about that,\u201d said Quitugua, a Babauta appointee from Rota.<\/p>\n
He said Fitial also informed them that a bill would be passed in the Legislature, calling for their resignation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not exactly sure if he\u2019s referring to the Reyes bill that aims to make board members co-terminus with the appointing governor. But see, you can\u2019t do that, especially with CDA, which has ongoing CIP projects,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Quitugua said individual board members have yet to decide whether to tender their resignations or not.<\/p>\n
He said that sitting board members are obliged to fulfill their duties.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were appointed to serve our terms. We went through the whole process. We got confirmed by the Senate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is the new governor so he can ask everyone to resign but it\u2019s still the individual\u2019s decision,\u201d said Quitugua.<\/p>\n
\u2018Governor wants reforms\u2019<\/p>\n
Press secretary Reyes justified the governor\u2019s push for the board members\u2019 resignation by saying that the governor wants flexibility to do the needed reforms in the CNMI.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe governor has always been open about his desire to start clean\u2026and to be allowed the flexibility to choose administrators [and] policymakers that are aligned with his political philosophy. I can tell you that the governor wants to be in a position to effect meaningful reforms,\u201d said Reyes.<\/p>\n
\u2018CDA not doing good\u2019<\/p>\n
Reyes acknowledged that \u201cCDA is not doing good\u201d but he said that there is really no serious plan right now to abolish the agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no drive right now for that. With [abolished] Marianas Public Lands Authority, there was a clear case. There\u2019s a drive to fix the problem permanently. There are numerous abuses and we finally corrected that, once and for all. With other boards and commissions, we have to look at them very carefully and try to work within the system,\u201d said Reyes.<\/p>\n
Quitugua, meantime, said that Fitial did not tell them anything about abolishing the agency but the possibility of merging it with the Department of Commerce. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Benigno R. Fitial has separately summoned board members of the Commonwealth Ports Authority and Commonwealth Development Authority to personally tell them to resign their posts immediately, according to the members.<\/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-98509","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\/98509","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=98509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}