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Nearly $18M spent on sanitization
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Posted on Feb 16 2022
The CNMI has already spent roughly $18 million to sanitize various government and private facilities since the COVID-19 pandemic started in the CNMI last March 2020.
Speaking at last Friday’s COVID-19 forum at Kensington Hotel Saipan, Patrick Guerrero, the governor’s authorized representative, said the CNMI has spent close to $18 million of its own local funds for this purpose. “It comes from local funding and we get it reimbursed,” he said.
He said he cannot pin down right now what the exact tally is but “what I could share with you is that overall, in the CNMI, since March of 2020, we’ve spent close to $18 million on disinfection services everywhere, whether it’s a hotel, airport, or vaccination site,” he said
“The protective measure in our COVID-19 operations is to disinfect places that are high risk. We do disinfection at the airport, down at the vaccination sites, and we also disinfect every hotel room after positive cases—and even non-positive cases—check out. We’ve disinfected government agencies and offices [as well],” he added.
To date, the CNMI has already received reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for earlier disinfecting jobs, he said. “For some of the earlier months during this pandemic and we still continue to submit these costs to FEMA for review and reimbursement,” Guerrero stated.
He explained that although $18 million seems like a large number, you can’t put a price on the safety of the CNMI community.
“I believe we can’t put a price tag on the safety of our community and of our citizens. If that’s what it costs, at the end of the day, all these costs are eligible reimbursement costs under FEMA’s program. We will get reimbursements for all this money that we spent while also continuing to safeguard our community,” he said.
The CNMI government has contracted five different disinfecting companies, including JOGO, Pacific Oriental, Safety Management Systems, among others.
“They all provide service up to a certain level. They all have disinfection programs that we’ve looked at and they continue to meet our needs,” he stated.
