Legislature, Army Corps begin hemodialysis probe

The Legislature and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have begun separate investigations on the alleged mismanagement of funds used to construct the Commonwealth Health Center’s hemodialysis project.

House Vice Speaker Timothy Villagomez, chair of the House Committee on Public Utilities, Transportation, and Communications, said yesterday that his panel has been gathering documents related to the project.

He said his panel is also working with the Office of the Public Auditor, which is conducting an audit of the project.

“We’ll forward these to the Department of Public Works. I’ll also be meeting with Mike Sablan of OPA on CHC’s ongoing audit,” said Villagomez.

At the same, he said that the Army Corps is also tasked to audit the project. DPW would be paying the Army Corps $50,000 for the job.

Villagomez said the work is only focused now on a review of all documents.

“It’s not oversight [yet]. We’ll review documentations, [especially] the engineering side of it. We’ll check what happened and we’ll work closely with OPA,” said the lawmaker.

He said the government’s primary concern is to finish the project immediately.

The House of Representatives and the Senate recently formed a joint panel to investigate the hemodialysis mess following the DPW and the CHC’s request for additional funding, totaling $5.8 million, to complete the project.

This would bring the total amount to nearly $17 million, way above the original project estimate of $5.6 million.

The CHC earlier received $11.8 million for the project. Of the amount, CHC awarded a $5.6 million contract to AIC Marianas to construct the facility. Other funds were reportedly spent for architectural and engineering design—which had to be done twice due to faulty work—and for several change orders.

The project is being handled by the Department of Public Health as the contracting authority and DPW as the expenditure authority. The Attorney General’s Office is also involved as it approves project change orders.

Meantime, both legislative chambers have approved the bill appropriating an additional $5.8 million for the project, taking the money from other pending projects in Kagman and Dandan. The Senate, however, amended the bill to require the contractor to secure an additional performance bond in view of the new appropriation.

The Senate-approved bill was referred back to the House of Representatives for review.

The measure, House Bill 14-258, aims to shift $5.8 million from the pending Kagman wastewater project for the completion of the hemodialysis project; and $2 million re-appropriated from the Dandan sewer project to a road paving project in Kagman III.

The reprogrammed money will be returned to the original projects beginning FY2007.