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Setting the Record Straight: No Matching Requirement for
CNMI CIP Now!
(Washington, DC) August 24, 2008. In response to Mr. Felipe Atalig’s
statement in both local papers’ August 22, 2008 editions claiming that local
matching funds for Covenant Section 702 Capital Improvement Funds are still
required, Resident Representative Pedro A. Tenorio responded with the following:
“I do not normally respond to critic’s comments, especially politically
motivated ones, but occasionally when those comments are untrue and such
disinformation may be potentially harmful to the people of the CNMI, I feel that
as your elected Resident Representative more familiar with the Covenant and our
relationship with the Federal Government, I must respond accordingly. I
can unequivocally state that there is no longer a local matching requirement for
new Capital Improvement Project funds,” stated Tenorio.
As agreed to in the Agreement of the Special Representatives on Future Federal
Financial Assistance of the Northern Mariana Islands as executed on December 17,
1992, the CNMI provided an equal local match for every dollar of federal 702 CIP
funds. Congress extended this matching requirement through FY 2003 with
U.S. Public Law 106-113. This law also provided only $5,420,000 to the
CNMI for Fiscal Year 2003. “However, through the combined efforts of
Governor Juan N. Babauta and myself, we were able to increase the FY 2003
appropriation to $11 million, and the funds represented by the increase over
$5.42 million did not require a match. Additionally, the 702 Agreement
signed by OIA Deputy Assistant Secretary David Cohen and Lt. Governor Diego
Benavente on February 9, 2004 did not include a local match requirement,” added
Tenorio.
“Unfortunately when the local matching requirement was removed, it did not
eliminate the prior local matching funds requirement under the old Future
Federal Financial Assistance executed in 1992. Therefore, today when our
government expends CIP funds appropriated prior to FY 2003, it must spend the
local matching dollars first, even if the federal funds have been reprogrammed,”
concluded Tenorio.
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