There are still a lot of unanswered questions surrounding Imperial Pacific International (IPI) and its Imperial Palace casino in Saipan, with concerns over how it intends to make good on millions of dollars in outstanding debt mounting. That isn’t the only struggle found in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), though, as the territory’s governor is facing some problems of his own. Governor Ralph Torres has had issues of his own over the past couple of years, facing investigations by the US FBI and others that centered on whether he had been leading some creative financing. One of the investigations led to a subpoena requested by the House of Representatives to explore his expenses, but the House committee in charge of the investigation is throwing in the towel. However, that doesn’t mean that it is going to put the issue behind it.

The Saipan Tribune reports that the committee, the Special Committee on Fiscal Review of Executive Expenditures, has reached an impasse in its investigation, unable to deal with the mountain of data it has received. The chairman of the committee, Representative Ralph Yumul, is uncomfortable with the situation and would prefer to hand the case over to the Office of the Public Auditor (OPA), which he explains has the legal authority to scrutinize all expenses related to public funds. 

Yumul authored a letter that he sent to Jonathan Blas Attao, the CNMI House Speaker, in which he explained, “I, as chairman and given the nature of the matter at hand, find that it would be at risk of acting without any legal authority and in violation of House rules if it proceeded with its investigation.” Attao had created the committee last July following allegations of potential corruption and misuse of public money, and Yumul added that he believes the OPA is better suited to lead the investigation.

In the subpoena that followed the creation of the committee, documents related to Torres and his wife between October 1, 2014, and December 10, 2019, were requested from a number of sources, including Mathilda A. Rosario, Triple B Forwarders station manager Paul Manglona, and Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC chief executive officer Donald Browne, and subpoenaed Finance Secretary David DLG Atalig, Finance Administrative Services director Margaret Bertha C. Torres, and legal counsel to the governor Gilbert Birnbrich. The committee also wanted to see expenses related to security, housing, utility payments and more, as well as any credit card or bank transactions during the same period.