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Alaska Native corporations under more scrutiny
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Filed Under: Business | Politics

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri), the chair of the Senate Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, is asking Alaska Native corporations for detailed information about their businesses.

McCaskill wants eight years of information. She is asking for compensation levels to top executives, profits, number of Native employees and other data in preparation for a July 16 hearing on the issue.

"We are always open to scrutiny," responded Will Anderson, the president of the ANCSA Regional Association, to The Anchorage Daily News. The corporations were created by Congress through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

In the letter last week, McCaskill gave the corporations until May 29 to provide the information. Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) want to extend the deadline.

“Your request for information from a selected few of the Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs) in our home State of Alaska is of great concern to us,” the Alaska senators wrote in a letter to McCaskill. “While we welcome fair and just oversight of the Native American 8(a) program to ensure its integrity, transparency and accountability, we are also concerned that ANCs will be inadvertently harmed.”

Get the Story:
Senate panel looks at Alaska Native corporation contracts (KTUU 5/18)
Native contracts get a hard look in US Senate (The Anchorage Daily News 5/19)