The acting governor of the Northern Marianas, Eloy Inos, says preliminary estimates show that the government's deficit could be nine million US dollars.
He says this is mainly because expenditures exceeded allocations for medical referrals and Medicaid as well as the deferred employer contributions to the NMI Retirement Fund.
Mr Inos, who oversees government finances, says the government could collect close to its revised sum of 122 million dollars but says it's always the healthcare-related spending that goes beyond allocations.
