$1.63B for BSI but what about us!

I’m sure the average reader viewed the news of BSI earning 1.63 billion in one month as being great for the CNMI. But I’m sure the people of the CNMI will agree with me that it is more important for the people to know our share of all these millions. The casino commission may have felt that they were doing their job by merely “reporting” what BSI made but for me and others they did not earn their money by just reporting. They are being paid a lot of money and we need them to do the work for us, which is to: 1. Do their work to monitor and confirm for us how much BSI made and not wait for BSI to tell us through the Hong Kong Stock Exchange because the commission is giving us BSI’s numbers not theirs; 2. Where is the formula for determining the average cost of BSI’s daily operations and what kind of in-depth monitoring and investigating is the commission doing to insure these numbers are accurate—simply, does the casino commission’s numbers jive with BSI’s numbers; 3. Finally, the casino commission owes it to the people of the CNMI who pay their salary to tell us how much the CNMI earned from the $1.63 billion in November.

I am not complaining but offering constructive criticism and I do want to thank the commission executive director Edward Deleon Guerrero for sharing BSI’s reported earnings. He also explained that the $1.63 billion was not profits only what was collected. However, if the casino commission truly wants the community to be supportive of the casino and the commission they need to show they are earning their pay by establishing a formula that will allow the commission to determine or estimate how much of BSI’s collections go to expenses and how much is profit and how much the CNMI earned because we don’t know if we are being cheated or not from a report that only states what was taken in which is require for the Business Gross Receipt tax (BGR). So what about the (PSP) the People’s Share of Profits beyond the BGR or do we have to make it a law to get this monthly information.

The people of the CNMI should know every month how much they made from the casino almost to the penny. I am not against the casino but I am for the casino and the governing casino commission being held more accountable and transparent in revealing the full effects of BSI’s operations and not just reporting to us what BSI is telling them. BSI does not work for the people of the CNMI so we need a commission that not only reports BSI’s numbers but the numbers for the people—it is just that simple. The commission members make too much money to only be reporting BSI’s numbers and I’m sure the people of the CNMI have more expectations of the commission than the sharing of BSI’s report, which could be done by a single secretary.

Do we have to wait until the feds tell us we are being cheated, which is the usual outcome with this kind of issues when local governments fail at doing their job? The best thing the casino commission can do at this point is to do the work to tell us how much BSI and the CNMI made to justify your work because I’m sure the commission members will truly be much more appreciated for doing their job.

Ambrose M Bennett
Kagman