A $5.1 million ‘mistake’

In a five-hour session with lawmakers on Monday, when grilled about DCM’s contract default with CUC, executive director Tony Muna stated, “We made a mistake. We learned from our lesson, and we’re not going to do it again.”

A mistake? Mr. Muna, no offense, but this isn’t a little bitty mistake. This is a $5.1 million mistake! And now you want us to believe you “learned your lesson.” At whose expense did you learn from this $5 million faux pas? Will DCM be paying back the $5 million? Will you, Mr. Muna? Will Governor Fitial? Will Attorney General Matt Gregory? Of course not! It is we, the CNMI taxpayers, who will have to pay the price for this royal screw-up. But what else is new?

What I can’t wait to find out about is why DCM was even hired in the first place. Who is DCM? How long have they been in the business of repairing power generators? Was this a sole-source contract? Did you look at their performance and reputation before hiring them? Did their workers really know what they were doing? Why weren’t the parts ordered on time and why weren’t those generators fixed in the time that was promised? Are you really sure there is no penalty clause? Would you be willing to say that under oath that there is no penalty clause? If there really is no penalty clause, wouldn’t that be extremely reckless, to say the very least, on your and Governor Fitial’s part? For a multi-million dollar contract, why wouldn’t you put in any penalty clause? Is there something going on here that we should know about?

And now, after you admitted to your $5 million blunder, you want to borrow $6 million from MPLT to pay Aggreko for back-up generators that may or may not be needed for the entire year? Do you honestly believe that the CNMI public will trust you and Governor Fitial after your DCM fiasco ended up costing the CNMI taxpayers $5 million?

I have about 147 questions for Mr. Muna and Governor Fitial, but for sake of space and time, I will narrow it down to only nine:

Who are the principle owners of DCM? Is there any truth to the rumor that a former governor of Guam, Mr. Joe Ada, is the principal owner? I didn’t see Mr. Ada’s name listed as one of the owners. Please, inquiring minds would like to know who exactly owns DCM. Doesn’t the public have a right to know who the DCM owners are so that we can ensure that complete fairness was applied and that there were no special considerations made? Let’s squash any rumors so that the CNMI people can be assured that DCM was chosen because it has the best generator mechanics in the entire Pacific and gave us the very best price. Can you assure the public that this is why DCM was chosen? By the way, when exactly was this contract approved and how many other bidders were there? Were all procurement regulations followed or was this another “emergency” contract that was sole-sourced?

Mr. Muna, why did you state there are no penalty clauses for DCM? For your information, I looked at a copy of the contract. I could have sworn I saw penalty clauses in there. Are you sure there are no penalty clauses, because I can assure you that the legislative oversight hearings will find out if in fact there were penalty clauses. If you are right and I am wrong and there are no penalty clauses, don’t you think you will be grilled as to why there were no penalty clauses put in place for a multi-million dollar contract? What will be your answer? That it was another mistake? How many mistakes will be made at the expense of our people? Could all these mistakes have something to do with incompetence, or is it just bad luck?

Do you honestly believe in your heart that after your $5 million mistake, the CNMI should entrust you with a $6 million contract for back-up generators? In all honesty, you are a businessman. If you had an employee who cost your company $5 million, would you allow him to continue to work for you? Be honest now.

Did you know that former CUC executive director Ramon “Kumoi” Guerrero found a number of flaws in the Aggreko contract? Did you know that Aggreko uses high-speed generators? Without any knowledge or technical experience and expertise with utilities, how can you make heads or tails out of any utilities contract that comes before you? Would you honestly be able to scrutinize a deal or contract and be able to find its flaws?

Why are you ignoring Telesource’s offer if they are willing to do it for half the price? Why can’t you do a new RFP and give all new and existing contractors the opportunity to bid? Wouldn’t that be better for all of us?

Do you honestly believe CUC can pay back MPLT? If CUC cannot even pay for fuel or money already owed to vendors, how in the world is CUC going to suddenly turn over a profit and pay back MPLT with interest? Congressman Ray Yumul and other lawmakers question the legitimacy and constitutionality of the loan. Will your Attorney General be willing to state that it is perfectly fine for CUC to borrow money from MPLT? Attorney General Matt Gregory, what say you?

Do you honestly think you can get back-up generators from Aggreko without raising our power rates once again? Let me re-emphasize that back-up generators would never even be needed if you did your homework and hired the very best company to fix our generators in the first place.

Is it true that DCM hired some of Felipe Atalig’s former employees? If DCM knew what they were doing, why would they need to hire Mr. Atalig’s employees?

This is my last but most important question. Governor Fitial and Mr. Muna, you both seem to take great pride in your business acumen. If you had a company that was performing poorly primarily due to mismanagement, misspending, and general incompetence, and you hired a CEO to make things better, would you fire that CEO if after more than two years on the job, the company got worse and was teetering toward bankruptcy? What if this CEO made a promise to you to deliver “Better Times” when you interviewed him initially? Would you or would you not fire him? My guess is, you would have fired him within his first year on the job if things got worse instead of better. Point of this question? Be very thankful you have been given four years to serve the people of the CNMI, but do not expect us to reward you with another four years after you have given our people nothing but a very dismal, uninspiring performance. There will be no curtain calls for this administration, I can assure you of that.

My dear brothers and sisters of the CNMI, if there ever was a time to stop a train wreck from happening, it is right now!

Here is what must happen immediately:

DCM needs to pay their penalty clause! If they don’t, then we sue them! Why not? Governor Fitial loves to sue! I don’t care who they are, if DCM defaulted on their contract with CUC, then we sue them and take back our money! We don’t need to hire a private attorney. We have Attorney General Matt Gregory to lead us! What do you say Matt? The truth is, after coming off the heels of a $5 million “mistake,” we all must do everything in our power to stop a $6 million mistake from taking place with Aggreko.

Mr. Muna and Governor Fitial must apologize to the people of the CNMI for their $5 million boo-boo. Perhaps a just punishment would be to have them write 500 times on a blackboard, “I will not hire incompetent companies” or “I will not misspend the CNMI’s money because it is not my money to begin with.”

Start a new RFP if we absolutely must get back-up generators so CUC will benefit from the very best possible deal. After all, no matter how you look at it, we are the ones who will be paying for it in the form of another increase in our utility rates.

I am asking every person who reads this to help stop this Aggreko deal from happening. As much as we need and deserve stable power, this is not the right way to go about doing it. Affordable power is as important as reliable power to most rate payers these days, and if the Aggreko deal pushes through, I promise the CNMI people will end up paying more than we should! No more biba koruption tactics! Our people have suffered enough!

In the meantime, I will be pushing for a popular initiative to have an attorney general elected. Judging by this current AG’s non-performance, I believe the CNMI needs to elect an attorney general so he or she may remain fair and impartial in all cases, especially when it relates to matters dealing with the governor of the CNMI. No one should ever be above the law. But when the attorney general acts as a rubber stamp to a governor and refuses to go against him (because he is really just a political appointee), you create an atmosphere where the governor is in fact above the law.

Let us work together in restoring our government. This administration must adhere to the will of the people. Let us put an end to the long-standing practice of serving the few while neglecting the many. A new, prosperous CNMI awaits all of us, but it will never happen unless the majority of us come together and think and act as advocates for change.