{"id":42323,"date":"2014-07-18T04:00:54","date_gmt":"2014-07-17T18:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=42323"},"modified":"2014-07-18T04:00:54","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T18:00:54","slug":"inos-denies-forbes-claim-fix-casino-license-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/inos-denies-forbes-claim-fix-casino-license-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Inos denies Forbes claim of \u2018fix\u2019 in casino license award"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Inos\"<\/a>
Inos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gov. Eloy S. Inos denied yesterday a claim made by a Forbes columnist that the selection process in the issuance of an exclusive Saipan casino license was \u201cfixed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFix? How is that? There was no fix,\u201d said Inos during an interview with reporters at a groundbreaking ceremony for an islandwide road marking and signage upgrade.<\/p>\n

Inos said he does not know anything about the Forbes article and said that he will look into it.<\/p>\n

In an article titled \u201c\u2018No banana republic\u2019 US-owned Saipan acts it in casino battle\u201d that was published on July 16, 2014, Forbes Asia contributing writer Muhammad Cohen wrote that throughout \u201cthe drive to legalize casinos on Saipan, it seemed as if the fix was in for Best Sunshine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hi article outlines the history of efforts to legalize casino gaming on Saipan, when two prior efforts were rejected by voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, in March, after the House passed a casino bill, the Senate approved it a day later, without public hearings or committee consideration,\u201d Cohen stated. \u201cOne thing had changed before the March vote: in late January, investors with ties to Macau junket promoter Hengsheng Group had hosted four key CNMI senators on a visit to Hong Kong and Macau, one of a series of so-called \u2018fact-finding\u2019 trips from late last year by CNMI elected officials, including Gov. Eloy Inos. Best Sunshine\u2019s parent company, then called First Natural Foods, announced its investment in Hengsheng last November, paying 400 million Hong Kong dollars (US$51 million) to the younger sister of First Natural\u2019s 34 year old controlling shareholder for an estimated 5 percent share of the junket promoter\u2019s profit stream.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inos pointed out that what people should be looking at is the result when the Commonwealth opened up the bid process for the exclusive casino license.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it was fixed, we will receive only one [proposal], but there were two proposals that were submitted,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Inos also said there was a request for proposals, \u201cso how could that be a fix from the beginning?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was another interested firm and they went through the bidding process and we are where we are right now,\u201d Inos said.<\/p>\n

He said there will always be people who will question the process. \u201cThere are skeptics out there all the time, no matter what,\u201d and that there are people \u201cwho just don\u2019t believe in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd to justify their reason, they\u2019ll go against it and use any justification,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Eloy S. Inos denied yesterday a claim made by a Forbes columnist that the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":42325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[256,338,65,529],"class_list":["post-42323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-casino","tag-hong-kong","tag-house","tag-macau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42323","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}