A tip for the governor
According to your official website, you oversee 38 agencies (minus five that are vacant), departments, and councils and 16 or more autonomous agencies or public corporations. You are a trained accountant with many years of experience, per your bio, and you are, of course, the boss of these 49 or more departments, et al. Your word is final, I would think.
I was an investigative accountant so here’s a tip for you. You call these agency, department, council, corporation, or whatever heads into your office, one at a time for a one-on-one chitchat and lay the law down. Give them seven days to get you a real, up-to-date accounting of every penny spent by their office over the past 180 days. No “miscellaneous” BS accounts. They have computers so put a detailed description on every single penny. Your trained eye will spot irregularities immediately. Overtime, vehicle expenses, rentals of all kinds, contributions, entertainment, consultants, special consultants, contractors, bonuses, travel, phones and phone service are just a few areas you should look at. You should ask the feds to do it for their operations here also. If you don’t find at least $1 million in waste in those six months, you aren’t really looking.
Remember, that’s our money, not yours and I don’t think you will be surprised to find most of the corruption will be in “autonomous agencies.” I want $800,000 of that savings for PSS to get 13,000 touch screen tablets for every child on Saipan so they can have a chance to thrive in this 21st century. How about it? While I’ve got you on the line, can you please tell your agencies, etc., to get online and up to date? It’s really hard biking between offices to get information. Thanks, governor.
P.S.: The proposal by Marianas Star is the most intelligent and brilliant idea to come to Saipan for 35 years. Retirees, get the paper and read their proposal. This is the one you should rally around: two casinos, twice the guaranteed license fee every year. Competition is good. Get another McDonald’s operator here and you will see $1 hamburgers like Guam has.
Gary DuBrall
Chalan Piao, Saipan
Gary, Mega Stars is the same company who operated on Tinian without a license. See past articles about that Tinian Gaming Commission sanctioning Mega Stars for operating and not getting a license there.
If Mega Stars is willing to break the laws on Tinian, what makes you think they will keep their promises and follow the law here? Perhaps you should do some internet digging on the people behind Mega Stars as well…
Regardless of what your research finds, the fact remains that neither of these two applicants have any experience in gaming or hotel operation. In addition neither have the direct funding required to make their projects happen. Which begs the question as to who is really applying for our license on Saipan?
Lastly, with your astute recommendation to the Governor on how to manage operations currently, how do you think our government will manage government operations once a 2,000 resort opens up? Think how efficiently we run PSS, NMC, CUC, CHC, DLNR, DPS, DOF and DPW now…..and without a single study as to how the impacts will affect our island?
This is a losing cause and we are DOOMED to fail if we award this license to anyone at this point in time.
The whole process must be started over and done right with the “People’s Involvement”.