No multi-million contract was signed by the governor with Azmar International for pozzolan mining on Pagan, said governor press secretary Pete Callaghan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s just no contract signed,\u201d he said, noting that a recent Associated Press article quoting Gov. Juan N. Babauta as having struck a multi-million deal with the company while attending a recent conference in Los Angeles was incorrect.<\/p>\n
\u201cI clarified it with people who were there and I\u2019m told that there\u2019s no such signing,\u201d said Callaghan.<\/p>\n
He said it was a case of the media \u201cmisquoting\u201d an official.<\/p>\n
He said it was true that the governor, together with Marianas Public Lands Authority officials, met with Azmar president Kenneth Moore while attending the Department of the Interior-sponsored annual investment conference in L.A. last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the governor asked is for the MPLA to expedite the decision making process on the matter,\u201d Callaghan said.<\/p>\n
Earlier, MPLA board chair Ana Demapan-Castro denied that a contract was signed with Azmar. <\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the meeting, we laid down [to Mr. Moore] what have been discussed by the board, including the conditions we have set for the issuance of a mining permit. They said they will do anything to comply with all the conditions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She said the MPLA is still studying \u201chow to best approach [Azmar\u2019s] request for a two-year permit.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the L.A. meeting, she said that Azmar made a new proposition: to give them a permit and a conditional agreement. <\/p>\n
She said Azmar had also promised not to lay foot on Pagan within 90 days, or until all the requirements are met. <\/p>\n
The MPLA board, in a meeting last August, decided to grant Azmar conditional approval and gave the company 60 days to prove its financial capability.<\/p>\n
The MPLA, among others, ordered Azmar to submit its most recent articles of incorporation; the names of its incorporators, officers and shareholders, and how much shares each of them holds; an audited financial statement; personal financial statements of the shareholders; initial capital for Pagan mining; names of investors; names of prospective buyers; and a letter of credit from a bank that is covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.<\/p>\n
Some authorities believe that there are some 200 million metric tons of high-grade pozzolan deposit on Pagan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No multi-million contract was signed by the governor with Azmar International for pozzolan mining on Pagan, said governor press secretary Pete Callaghan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84738","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}