A tangled web of crisscrossing and interwoven connections\u2014as suggested by documents obtained by Saipan Tribune\u2014imply a wide-ranging case of conflicts in the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.\u2019s emergency procurement of an engine.<\/p>\n
At the same time, there is a sense of circling the wagons, with CUC officials and board members citing rules and regulations to cloak their actions, belying claims of transparency and openness.<\/p>\n
An examination of the articles of incorporation of General Pacific Services Marianas Inc., the engine\u2019s contractor, shows that CUC board member Albert Taitano is GPSM\u2019s registered agent for the service of legal processes.<\/p>\n
Rep. Ed Propst (Ind-Saipan) attempted to confirm this with CUC deputy executive director William Gilmore. \u201cI asked Gilmore in an interview if any of the members of the board had a conflict of interest with this company,\u201d Propst said. Gilmore reportedly said there was none.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to Gilmore, [Taitano] was [involved with negotiations] all throughout the process,\u201d said Propst, \u201c\u2026[but] you have to disclose this [conflict] by law.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Saipan Tribune asked Gilmore about Taitano\u2019s role in the contract, Gilmore said, \u201cHis role was to say yes or no to the motion that was made.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTaitano decided to recuse himself [during the vote],\u201d added Gilmore, even mentioning that Taitano did not have anything to do with the formulation of the contract.<\/p>\n
Not so fast, said Propst. \u201cEven if Taitano claims he didn\u2019t vote on it, that is besides the point,\u201d he said in a separate interview, saying that the bigger question is why Taitano and GPSM president Amelia Toelkes failed to disclose their business relationship.<\/p>\n
According to Gilmore, Taitano failed to disclose to the CUC board members why he recused himself from the vote. \u201cI have no idea why,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gilmore regularly attends CUC board meetings, including the board\u2019s executive sessions.<\/p>\n
Saipan Tribune tried to ask Taitano yesterday about his relationship with GPSM and Toelkes but he did not respond as of press time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the conflict of interest, this contract must be declared null and void. It should not proceed forward and it should not take an injunction to stop this contract. Why didn\u2019t the president of GPSM reveal this information?\u201d asked Propst.<\/p>\n
The CUC board had voted to procure an 8- to 10-megawatt diesel engine from GPSM.<\/p>\n
The Public Utilities Commission, which has regulatory authority over CUC, has been silent about the issue so far. It\u2019s a three-member body that is currently down to one member, David Guerrero, as the governor has yet to assign two new members.<\/p>\n
Relationships<\/strong><\/p>\n Another relationship involved in the emergency procurement that is also raising some eyebrows is that of CUC board chair Adelina Roberto and a certain Philip Roberto, said to be GPSM\u2019s vice president.<\/p>\n Adelina Roberto was one of three CUC members who voted to proceed with the procurement of the engine from GPSM.<\/p>\n It was only after voting to push through with the engine\u2019s procurement and two House lawmakers raising a howl of protest that the board agreed to produce a negotiating committee that is supposed to negotiate the engine\u2019s purchase from GPSM.<\/p>\n CUC board member Eric San Nicolas proposed the negotiating committee, supposedly to speed things up. The committee would be headed by Adelina Roberto.<\/p>\n When asked about Adelina Roberto and Philip Roberto\u2019s relationship, Gilmore said, \u201cI believe that is a new name for me,\u201d referring to Philip.<\/p>\n Saipan Tribune also asked Adelina Roberto about this but, like Taitano, she has yet to respond as of press time.<\/p>\n Why so secretive?<\/strong><\/p>\n Saipan Tribune learned that CUC came up with a selection committee headed by Gilmore to handle the selection of the request for quotations, or RFQ. Gilmore said the nominees for selection of the RFQ was based on previously cancelled requests for proposals, or RFP, giving CUC the liberty to decide on who gets the deal.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a responder to one of two prior RFP\u2019s that we issued and were cancelled, we used those as our sources for getting immediate quotes,\u201d said Gilmore. \u201dThere were four total and we called them all.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked about the members of the selection committee, Gilmore consulted first with CUC legal counsel James Sirok, asking whether he was allowed to disclose the names of the members.<\/p>\n Sirok reportedly did not authorize Gilmore to identify the committee members, deeming the names to be \u201cunnecessary\u201d information.<\/p>\n \u201cThe selection committee operates privately. They do their deliberations, they pull their information together and they make their recommendation, which is fair and just. They all signed off on the final recommendations to the board, that was it,\u201d added Gilmore.<\/p>\n Prior to consulting Sirok, Gilmore stated that the committee is composed of two representatives from the power division, a CUC contract manager, CUC chief financial officer Antonio Castro, and Gilmore himself acting as chair.<\/p>\n Propst attended Wednesday\u2019s special CUC board meeting, only to be greeted by questions about his presence at the meeting.<\/p>\n Wednesday\u2019s discussion on the financial aspect of procuring the engine was done through an executive session. Despite discussing the financing behind closed doors, San Nicolas told reporters yesterday that the process was \u201copen and transparent, contrary to what Mr. Propst said.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A tangled web of crisscrossing and interwoven connections\u2014as suggested by documents obtained by Saipan Tribune\u2014imply…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[3062,49,16157,38],"class_list":["post-249354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-adelina-roberto","tag-cuc","tag-gpsm","tag-saipan-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}