If you are from the Northwest region (Election District #5) of Chuuk State, FSM you might wonder about the funding priorities for our region as reported in my recent post entitled, “FSM Congress Allocates Millions for Projects.”
But do you know why the same congressional bill (C.B. No. 19-131) allocates $71,000.00 yet specifies where the money needs to be deposited? Here’s the exact wording as you can view on the CB itself.
“$71,000.00 (for) Land Acquisition for the people of Halls, Weito and Pattiw Islands…PROVIDED THAT the allottee of this specific funding shall deposit the funds into the Special Funds within the General Fund of the Federated States of Micronesia for Chuuk Election District No. 5 established pursuant to Public Law No. 13-83.”
Why are we the only region in the FSM and Chuuk State whose allocation is being deposited into a “Special Funds” located and controlled in Palikir using an old public law P.L. No. 13-83?
From what I can tell from reading the full wording of this Public Law No. 13-83, this was a law passed in 2005 by the 13th FSM Congress and signed by then President Joseph Urusemal. It created a special fund in the FSM General Fund controlled in Palikir FSM President Peter Christian….(wait for it…) “or his designee.” In other words, the $71,000 allocated on February 12, 2016 is deliberately funneled into this special fund rather than Chuuk State so that only President Christian or whoever he designates will be able to spend it down.
WTF!
Are we talking about public funds being set aside for private land acquisition in Pohnpei or elsewhere? What is this about? Why should the president have a say in land acquisition for the Northwest people? Who exactly will the president designate as allottee for this fund to purchase lands on our behalf? Why are we buying lands again? Where? What happened to the other lands that were supposedly purchased on Weno by previous senators from our region for the same purpose? When is this nonsense going to end?
By the way, WTF! means Wiiwiin Tiper Firio!
Dr. Vid Raatior
Dr. Vid Raatior is a proud Chuukese parent, educator, citizen blogger, and social entrepreneur living in the US.
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Vid, thank you for the updates. I’m utterly speechless by these shenanigans, bordering on being criminal. I’ll have to calm down and gather myself first before commenting any further. smh
Stan and Vid,
Pardon my nonsense here but wish to make some clarification on the subject, the $71K for land Acquisition to my understanding was used to buy out private lands in the northwest islands that schools and dispensaries were still using. On the subject of the said PL that was sign by then President Urusemal, this $71K was never deposit in to that subsection as it was just appropriated and used up during the 18th congress and during the 18th congress President Mori was not the allottee for ED5 during which the appropriation of the said $17k made and the allottee for Ed5 was then the NIDA. Lastly, NIDA nor President Christian is the ED5 allottee, Governor of Chuuk State is now our allottee and Director of Administrative Services Mr. Jessee Mori is the financial inspector for Ed5. Thank you
Killisou, Senator, for shedding light on the $71,000. Please kindly dig up the record of your predecessor and share with us so we know where the funding was spent.
$71,000. was never recorded and don’t know how it was spend?
OMG! God have mercy on us!