MGI master concessionaire contract terminated by DPL

The Department of Public Lands has terminated the master concessionaire contract for Mañagaha Island awarded to Mariana Global Inc. for MGI’s failure to comply with violations cited by DPL.

Yesterday, in an interview with Gregory Deleon Guerrero, director for DPL’s compliance division, he said that DPL recently terminated its concessionaire agreement with MGI for its failure to cure violations to include nonpayment of fees pursuant to the agreement.

“We issued a notice of termination to Mariana Global because they failed to cure the violations on our notice of violations. It was sent out in September and they had 30 days to cure the violations. After that, they asked for an extension, and we gave them an extension to cure the violations. However, the deadline came, and they failed. So their attorney wrote to us asking if they can resolve the matter and if not, they would have to go through an appeals process,” he said.

According to information acquired from DPL, to date, MGI has not remitted its rental fee for 7/2024-6/2025 in the amount of $800,000 plus interest of $12,000 for a total of $812,000.

Currently, Deleon Guerrero states that the matter is under DPL’s appeals process and has been forwarded to a hearing officer.

Pending a decision on the appeal, DPL will take over the operations of Mañagaha Island starting Oct. 26.

“So right now, the matter has been forwarded to our hearing officer for the appeal process and we gave them until the 26 and DPL would take over the operations of Mañagaha while MGI goes through the appeals process,” he said.

While the appeals process is ongoing, Deleon Guerrero said DPL might issue a temporary occupancy agreement for the commercial use of Mañagaha’s concession area.

“We try to work with our clients but if they don’t, then the process must continue, unfortunately. What we can do, like we did in the past, is issue a temporary occupancy agreement. So, on a temporary basis, vendors could go out there and sell bento boxes, beverages, snorkels, those kinds of things. Again, this would be temporary pending appeal. The appeals process could revert occupancy of the island back to MGI, but if not, then we’d have to issue a new RFP,” he said.

Saipan Tribune tried to get a comment from MGI but was told executives were off-island and could not issue a statement.

MGI and DPL executed the master concessionaire contract for Mañagaha on July 1, 2023

DPL entered an agreement with Mariana Global Inc. to operate the Mañagaha Island’s exclusive concession for 10 years, in exchange for payment of $800,000 in annual base rent, 9% business gross receipts rent, and over $200,000 in annual public benefit contribution.