Economic slowdown stops Tinian Dynasty from hooking up to CUC

TINIAN — Tinian Dynasty Hotel and Casino said Saturday that economic slowdown has rendered the management financially incapable to pay permit violation penalties imposed by the Coastal Resources Management.

Tinian Dynasty Hotel Manager Tom Liu said their current revenue-generating capacity prevents the management from paying $370,000 plus penalties for their failure to hook up to the Commonwealth Utilities’ Corporation’s 20-megawatt power plant on the island.

As part of the management’s self-imposed austerity measure, Mr. Liu the hotel has to depend on its nine generators for power and water supply.

These generators provide Tinian Dynasty approximately 10-megawatt electricity, which is enough to cover the entire hotel and casino operations.

In fact, only four generators are currently being used while the five others are for back up, the hotel manager added.

Tinian Dynasty, through its legal counsel Anthony Long, has already submitted its response to the complaint lodged by CUC against the company’s failure to hook up to its 20MW power plant on the island.

With this, Mr. Liu raised strong hopes CUC’s concerns will soon be addressed and that the issue will be finally laid to rest.

He stressed that CRM should immediately appoint Jerry Cody’s replacement to expedite the enforcement hearing which has been subjected to consecutive postponement.

CUC officials earlier disclosed that the government-controlled corporation is losing revenue enough to subsidize the operation of its Tinian power plant due to the delays in the enforcement hearing.

CUC Legal Counsel Robert Torres said by further delaying the hearing process, enough revenue has been wasted not only on the part of the utility corporation but also for the CNMI as a whole.

Mr. Torres urged CRM to immediately appoint Mr. Cody’s replacement. Mr. Cody, a labor hearing officer, had been asked to recuse himself from hearing the case due to conflict of interest.

CUC also asked CRM to sanction Tinian Dynasty for its persistent failure to hook up to CUC’s 20 megawatt power plant, apparently ignoring the permit issued by CRM’s last year.

In June 1996, CRM issued a permit to Hong Kong Entertainment Investment, Ltd. for the construction of Dynasty Hotel. Under the provision of CRM, developers will connect to CUC services for 100 percent of the developers’ need.

But since the construction of Tinian Dynasty, the management only hooked up to CUC power plant in October last year and disconnected from the power plant only days after.

CUC officials claimed that after this, the utility corporation has been losing an estimated $20,000 monthly revenue because there is no sufficient customers relying heavily on the 20MW power grid. (EGA)