Inos denies Forbes claim of ‘fix’ in casino license award
Inos
Gov. Eloy S. Inos denied yesterday a claim made by a Forbes columnist that the selection process in the issuance of an exclusive Saipan casino license was “fixed.”
“Fix? How is that? There was no fix,” said Inos during an interview with reporters at a groundbreaking ceremony for an islandwide road marking and signage upgrade.
Inos said he does not know anything about the Forbes article and said that he will look into it.
In an article titled “‘No banana republic’ US-owned Saipan acts it in casino battle” that was published on July 16, 2014, Forbes Asia contributing writer Muhammad Cohen wrote that throughout “the drive to legalize casinos on Saipan, it seemed as if the fix was in for Best Sunshine.”
Hi article outlines the history of efforts to legalize casino gaming on Saipan, when two prior efforts were rejected by voters.
“However, in March, after the House passed a casino bill, the Senate approved it a day later, without public hearings or committee consideration,” Cohen stated. “One thing had changed before the March vote: in late January, investors with ties to Macau junket promoter Hengsheng Group had hosted four key CNMI senators on a visit to Hong Kong and Macau, one of a series of so-called ‘fact-finding’ trips from late last year by CNMI elected officials, including Gov. Eloy Inos. Best Sunshine’s parent company, then called First Natural Foods, announced its investment in Hengsheng last November, paying 400 million Hong Kong dollars (US$51 million) to the younger sister of First Natural’s 34 year old controlling shareholder for an estimated 5 percent share of the junket promoter’s profit stream.”
Inos pointed out that what people should be looking at is the result when the Commonwealth opened up the bid process for the exclusive casino license.
“If it was fixed, we will receive only one [proposal], but there were two proposals that were submitted,” he said.
Inos also said there was a request for proposals, “so how could that be a fix from the beginning?”
“There was another interested firm and they went through the bidding process and we are where we are right now,” Inos said.
He said there will always be people who will question the process. “There are skeptics out there all the time, no matter what,” and that there are people “who just don’t believe in it.”
“And to justify their reason, they’ll go against it and use any justification,” he added.
If this was done properly, we wouldn’t be discussing this. Sorry governor…I am pretty sure this will not go away anytime soon.
What did you expect? Even a significant number of your own people question the legitimacy of this process and you expect the world observers not to? Even more questionable is your claim to “look into it” yet you ignored all pleas from your own constituents to please allow them to participate in this decision.
The retirees were suffering as much as many, many, many of us, but WE were not DYING! Many without air condition, but we slept well with fans. Many without ice cream, but we all ate our fill of food to satisfied bellies – I did not see anyone losing so much weight from famine that is for sure. Many of us cut back on excursions, because we needed to conserve gas, but we all showed up to work, appointments and went to stores to buy food and other necessities.
ALL of us deserved to be heard and a well thought out plan should have been done to resolve ALL our problems. However, most of you chose to exclude the rest of us and turned this into a political issue using some retirees as pawns!
Why the overnight legislation for a casino in Saipan?
Base on our observation on the matter at the legislature, Senator Hocog was the master mind at the CNMI Senate and he had influence on senators from Tinian and Rota.
This is our take on the matter, Saipan elected officials assured Tinian Delegation that Best Sunshine would be awarded the Sole Casino License in Saipan at the beginning of the process and to make sure Mega Star will continue to do business as Casino Operator in Tinian. It was a back door deal between our elected officials from the three senatorial districts. This is the CNMI which the elected officials would do anything to win an election and the present administration sees that the sole Casino Operator scheme will assure them another term via the
CNMI Retirees.
The only reason why there was two bidders is that you did not anticipate “Stars” getting blindsided by this after being assured by you and the rest of the delegation(s) and elected that there would be no Casino on Saipan. This is why they invested in Dynasty on Tinian.
The only reason that “Stars” put in a bid and payment was an attempt to protect their investment and plans that they had already committed to on Tinian.
They would have not committed to Tinian if they had of known about this Casino “deal”.
Even when they submitted their application they were refused by the Commission. Only after a threatened court action did the Comm. accept their app. as the Comm. stated that they made a mistake on the counting the days. Give me a break, even a first grader can count single digits.
So you are saying that between all of the board member they could not get the correct date??? (the first time)
You guys were very surprised that anybody came up with the matching funds to apply.
The derogatory part in the report against “Stars” on the investigative report looked like it was cut and pasted from the story that ran earlier in MV with the comments from acting Commissioner, Ike, on the TCGC about his interpretation of gaming laws and his ire with “Stars” because they questioned some irregularity thye were being required to agree to.
Due to the absence of Lucy Blanco who was off island, nobody else on the TCGC had any reading comprehension to understand the laws.
Even the roport on “Sunshine” stated that their business plan ran “parallel according to what was required in the proposal (among other coincidences in the Govt. proposal)
You guys are so busted.
Even in Honkong, Radio New Zealand and other areas the way the elected and this Admin dis this thing was noticed all over the world as is evident with the Forbs article.
Regardless what happens to this Casino, all of you involved in this fiasco have set the NMI back years on any new investment and have put the NMI on the radar again world wide. This may even have worse negative effects than anything that Fitial attempted to do or had done.
This even reached Hawaii and all are laughing at the amateur attempt to cover up of an “under the table done deal behind the people back by unscrupulous elected officials with the sitting Gov. involved.”
Take that and smoke it!!