Unethical: Then and now

In an ethics code advisory opinion last week, the Office of the Public Auditor said that joining a trip to Singapore to explore integrated resorts, among other things, “would constitute clear and unambiguous violation of the Ethics Act by any member of the Legislature that accepted the invitation as proffered” and will expose them to “potential criminal and civil liability.”

Since the release of OPA’s advisory opinion, one other question that community members would like to ask OPA and the Office of the Attorney General is whether previous trips that the CNMI’s current and former elected officials actually participated in and paid for by casino- and utility-related firms also constitute a violation of the CNMI Government Ethics Code Act of 1992 and what the consequences would be.

Kudos to the individual or individuals who recently sought OPA’s opinion on the invitation extended to lawmakers to go to Singapore.

This comes at a time when Best Sunshine International Ltd. is working on its promised $7 billion exclusive integrated casino resort on Saipan, courtesy of a 2014 casino bill that was introduced, passed, and signed into law without public hearings and legislative committee report.

Kudos to OPA, too, for a prompt response to a June 2 request for an advisory opinion on the Singapore trip invitation.

Had a similar request for an OPA advisory opinion been sought in 2013 and 2014, it would have put to rest lingering questions about CNMI elected officials’ previous casino fact-funding trips to Hong Kong/Macau and Singapore ahead of House vice speaker Ralph Demapan’s pre-filing of a bill allowing an exclusive casino license on Saipan.

Or perhaps there won’t be any Saipan casino to talk about today. But then again, that could also mean continued pension cuts for retirees, among other things.

In interviews with elected officials during the 18th Legislature—including Demapan, then Senate vice president and now president Victor Hocog and then senator and now Lt. Gov. Ralph Torres—they said their off-island trips were paid for by a private business.

It took them four months since a December 2013 trip, for example, to finally identify the business that invited, hosted and paid for their trip, which was Esteem Capital. The trips were made barely months after an abrupt end to an unprecedented impeachment process over corruption, neglect of duty, and felony.

Esteem Capital had planned to invest close to $3 billion in the CNMI for an integrated casino resort development at the time.

In one of the transcriptions of those 2014 interviews, Torres was asked by reporters, “Who paid for the trip?” He replied, “The company [Esteem Capital] paid for it and the company paid for fact-finding. It was only in Hong Kong.” In that particular trip, he said he was with Hocog and Sens. Frank Borja and Frank Cruz.

Also around the time, Esteem Capital entered into a partnership with the China-Australia Entrepreneurs Association Inc. and Zelong Group to invest $5 billion in a casino resort in Australia.

In April 2014, Best Sunshine International Ltd. and Marianas Stars Entertainment Inc. submitted an application for an exclusive Saipan casino license. According to elected officials at the time, the two applicants did not include those responsible for sponsoring CNMI officials’ previous Asian fact-finding trips.

That, however, did not ease doubts about the lawmakers’ 2013 and 2014 off-island trips and concerns that the Saipan casino bill that lawmakers hastily passed was tailored for the entities they met with in Hong Kong.

But as far as the CNMI government is concerned, its hiring of casino investigator B2G Global Strategies and gaming consultant The Innovation Group would have uncovered any such questionable links. After all, these two consultants were hired to review and investigate the two casino applications submitted by Best Sunshine and Marianas Stars.

Elected officials’ questionable off-island trips around the time were not only limited to those related to casinos. In December 2013, for example, some lawmakers were also in Hong Kong at the invitation of Blue Ocean Energy Corp., which at the time was planning to invest in a $100-million, 50-megawatt liquefied natural gas plant project on Saipan.

Now, thankfully, OPA was sought for an advisory opinion on an invitation extended to lawmakers for an off-island trip “to explore integrated resorts, their makeup, operation, and benefit” when Best Sunshine is already developing its integrated resort.

“The fact pattern as presented to OPA involves an invitation by a person either ‘contracted by or funded by’ a large corporate entity that does business in the CNMI in an emerging field that is heavily regulated by both statute and administrative regulation,” OPA said.

OPA pointed out that “the facts presented would constitute clear and unambiguous violation of the Ethics Act by any member of the Legislature that accepted the invitation as proffered.”

It cited CNMI law stating that “a public official shall not solicit or accept anything of value, or the promise of anything of value, from a person regulated by the government entity that the public official serves.”

While its opinion is limited to whether or not the acceptance of such an invitation would violate the Ethics Act, OPA said it must be said that “CNMI law also prohibits offering of such gifts.”

“In conclusion, it is the opinion of OPA that acceptance of the invitation as described would constitute a violation of the Ethics Act and expose any persons so accepting to potential criminal and civil liability,” OPA added.

Whether this would put a halt to CNMI elected officials’ future off-island trips associated with casinos or any planned or existing businesses is anyone’s guess, but anyone could always say it is only OPA’s “advisory” opinion anyway and investor-paid travels by elected officials were done several times before without repercussions, too. (Haidee V. Eugenio)