Rep. Edwin K. Propst (Ind-Saipan) hopes the Legislature would do an oversight to shed light on issues surrounding the Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC, after last Friday\u2019s confusion brought by what the company described as a \u201cpartial delay\u201d in its payroll.<\/p>\n
In a statement, IPI said that \u201ctransfer issues\u201d caused the delay in the payroll but they had already paid over 2,000 of their hourly workers last Friday while all salary employees would be paid within the week.<\/p>\n
\u201c[IPI]\u00a0intends to meet our obligations and asks for the community\u2019s continued support, patience and understanding,\u201d added the IPI statement.<\/p>\n
In a separate memorandum sent earlier to IPI employees, it quoted IPI chief executive officer Henry Cheang as saying that they regret the inconvenience caused by the problem. \u201cIPI regrets the inconvenience and any hardship this payroll delay causes for you and your loved ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIPI\u2019s Human Resources department and your supervisors will immediately inform all of you as soon as possible via email or text as the circumstances dictate, which will include whether paychecks will be issued only in paper form for all employees, including those who have direct deposit,\u201d added Cheang.<\/p>\n
Propst said the House Gaming committee, chaired by Rep. Joseph P. Deleon Guerrero (R-Saipan), has the power to call for an oversight and look into certain things that involves the casino.<\/p>\n
\u201c[But] that would be up to their [House Gaming Committee\u2019s] discretion. Aside from the Legislature, we already have a proper regulating agency and that is the Commonwealth Casino Commission. But the Legislature needs to consider doing an oversight because there\u2019s a lot of unanswered questions,\u201d said Propst.<\/p>\n
In a separate post on social media, Propst cited the difficulty of obtaining any statement from the commission. Deleon Guerrero, in an interview with the Saipan Tribune, said they would schedule a meeting with casino commission officials this week to seek answers.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst of all, I\u2019m not even going to dignify that request for an oversight by responding to it. We will look into the matter, yes. We will meet with CCC this week and then we will find out what\u2019s going on and from there, determine what course of action is appropriate,\u201d said Deleon Guerrero.<\/p>\n In a separate interview with the Saipan Tribune, CCC vice chair Joseph Reyes said that commission chair Juan Sablan had already inquired about the issue with IPI. \u201cWe don\u2019t speculate on things until we have all the facts. There are always two sides in every story.<\/p>\n \u201cThe employees were paid accordingly and the money transfer just came in late. We will still see what happens with this issue. We [CCC] takes things seriously and we\u2019re on top of it,\u201d he added. Propst said the casino commission\u2019s \u201csilence\u201d as well as that of other officials is a concern. \u201cI\u2019m just wondering why we have [yet] to hear from the executive director [Edward Deleon Guerrero]. I\u2019m hoping to hear what he has to say from these issues. We never hear them [CCC]. \u201c<\/p>\n \u201cThey are supposed to be regulating the casino, but we haven\u2019t seen much taking in place. [There\u2019s] total silence also when Pacific Rim [Contractors] laid off its workers\u2014including locals where I\u2019m told that 200 lost their jobs. They are out there looking for jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are we not hearing from any of our government agencies? We haven\u2019t heard. There\u2019s total silence on the hill. I don\u2019t hear our colleagues talking or asking questions, like nothing\u2019s happening,\u201d added Propst.<\/p>\n Propst said it appears that IPI is having difficulties in settling its financial obligations. \u201cThey still owe GPPC [Inc.], they owe several other\u2014even small vendors\u2014that they haven\u2019t been able to pay. They missed payroll and were only able to pay their hourly workers and not their managers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c[That\u2019s] not to mention that they no longer do business with Pacific Rim. Pacific Rim is reportedly owed $16 million. They can correct me if I\u2019m wrong in that figure but I know what is owed is in the millions,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n He said that construction materials have also become a problem. \u201cI\u2019m hearing now that IPI is having difficulty in trying to bring in construction materials because they haven\u2019t paid the vendor that they have been doing business with.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rep. Edwin K. Propst (Ind-Saipan) hopes the Legislature would do an oversight to shed light…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[3126,152,12497,13196],"class_list":["post-282579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-commonwealth-casino-commission","tag-deleon-guerrero","tag-ipi","tag-pacific-rim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282579","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\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nCCC to look into matter<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\nSilent hill<\/strong><\/p>\n